


Galaxy Station 87 (where I weed out my love for you)

by iridania



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amusement Parks, Angst with a Happy Ending, First Dates, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Lance (Voltron), POV Lance (Voltron), Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Plotty, Post-Season/Series 05, Supernatural Illnesses, Unreliable Narrator, hanahaki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-08 12:33:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 58,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15930527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridania/pseuds/iridania
Summary: When the Paladins embark on a mission to Galaxy Station 87 and its exciting amusement park, all Lance expects is five days of fun. What he gets instead is flowers in his lungs.(A hanahaki disease story where Lance has no idea whom he’s in love with.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> \- Canon AU where I have fun playing with the hanahaki disease trope (and Lance’s obliviousness). This story takes place after season 5, but was written before season 6 aired.  
> \- Because of Reasons (™), the Red Lion will be referred to both as an “it” and as a “he”.  
> \- [The Nee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neerapen/) was so kind to listen to my endless whining while this fic was kicking my butt. She helped me make this story better, and then she ate all the typos. All remaining mistakes are mine.

Galaxy Station 87 was the place where dreams went to die.

That’s what everyone said; and they said that with a big smile and no regrets, since those dying dreams would be reborn from their ashes. The trick about it, Lance discovered, was that once you got to the Station, your idea of fun was ruined forever.

The whole complex had started out as your average space mall; then it got bigger and bigger, until someone started calling it a planet, even if it wasn’t a planet at all. By then, it already had several residential districts, a well-known hospital, and - of course - the most awesome amusement park in the entire universe. Everything was built around it.

“Three Haunted Mansions, four Towers of Terror, a House of Mirrors, and a roller coaster that takes you out to outer space?!” Pidge sat up, waving a monster-sized pamphlet in her hands: “We definitely need to try that last one!”

“All of this reminds me of that Fun Sentry we met once,” Hunk said. “Did we ever get his name?”

“No.” Lance regretted never asking more about him, because that dude was a hero. A _fun_ hero. Which is why... “I call him Funtry. Or Funsen, for short.”

“Oooh, those are nice names!” Hunk cooed.

“What? No!” Pidge protested. “Those are terrible names.”

“I like them. They’re _fun_ ,” a new voice said.

Lance took his eyes off the dashboard to see Colrin step into the cockpit. He was in his Marmorite suit, right hand resting casually on his belt, where his Blade was. While he looked ready to take on a full Galra army, his mask was turned off and his eyes were twinkling with mischief. He smiled at Lance with a hint of amusement.

“That’s what I thought,” Lance grinned back. “They’re _terribly fun_ names.”

As Pidge groaned in dismay, Colrin leaned against the empty seat near the pilot chair. “You always have funny thoughts,” he said.

Lance chose to take that as a compliment. He checked the ship position on the monitors.

“How’s it going back there?”

They’d been having problems with some of their _extra cargo_. They had to take out their bayards a couple of times since they took flight - the last one in order to stop Matt, of all people, from knocking out their most chatty prisoner. Pidge had to sucker punch _him_ instead, and now her brother was snoring his anger away in one of the back seats. Lance couldn't blame the guy, though: those disgraced Galra commanders were (almost) as annoying as Slav. Luckily they’d be out of their hands before someone else snapped.

“We’re fine,” Pidge said, poking at Matt’s feet with the tip of her boot.

Colrin crossed his arms around the headrest at Lance’s side. “It’s all under control,” he said. “Nothing Keith can’t handle on his own.”

Lance snorted. “That doesn’t tell me much,” he muttered.

Colrin answered with a soft laughter. “True.”

“How long until we land?” Hunk piped-up. He was becoming more jittery now that they were getting closer to their destination.

“Not even half a varga.” Lance pressed some buttons and switched several levers. “We’re almost at the Gate. You’d better fasten your seat belts.”

“Yeah, you’re the one piloting,” Pidge said.

Lance, being the merciful Pala-person he was, just let that little quip go. But if traitorous Pidge thought her comments could upset him in any way she was wrong, because nothing could distract the Tail—

“Look out!”

Lance dived just in time to avoid collision with a tiny, little ( _HUGE_ ) metallic plate. A nearby vessel wasn't so lucky: it lost control and got pushed back in outer space, leaving a ring of debris in its wake.

Hunk shouted again – something that Lance didn't care to decode this time. Their ship swerved, and he had to speed up and then hit the brakes hard, trying to make it through the narrow passageway before them.

It worked.

The gravity pull suddenly changed and their radar came alive, showing Lance dozens of signatures that hadn’t been there before: satellites, asteroids… and ships: hundreds of vessels coming in formation and heading for the glowing city below them.

They had just entered the Gate.

That’s how the Station protected itself, by the way: an artificial debris field, impossible to navigate by anything but small ships, most full of happy families on vacation. It was all perfectly safe, really... Except for the occasional engine that burst into flames, detached from its original ship, and came at you swinging out of control. Official stats spoke of the 'amazingly low rate!' of 1 death every 10000 visitors. Lance was pretty sure he had just witnessed at least two.

“We’re fine,” he told himself.

An explosion from their right side. Lance adjusted their course according to the new gravity shift.

“We’re fine!” he informed the others, louder, as the ship stopped shaking.

Everyone was too busy clinging to their seat to complain. The only exception was Matt, who was still spread out on his chair, fast asleep. Lance liked that dude. He never made a fuss when Lance was in charge. Not at all like—

“What’s going on?!” a grumpy voice shouted through the ship’s comms. “Did we hit something?”

“We’re fine, Red,” Colrin said, a bit winded.

“No-one hit anything, Keith,” Lance shouted back, annoyed. “There's nothing here to hit!”

Right on cue, Hunk pointed and screamed at something in front of them. Lance steered in the nick of time to avoid a flying toilet seat.

“Nice move,” Colrin complimented, still hugging his chair.

Pidge adjusted her glasses. “Are we out of the danger zone yet?”

“No real danger with me at the helm, Pidge,” Lance promised, patting the dashboard.

Pidge clicked her tongue in return. “Just look out for any stray bidets.”

Lance did. He flew for about another five minutes before the radar alerted him that the area was clear. Once he was sure there were no more flying toilet seats (or useless bidets) ahead of them, he activated the comms.

“Attention, ungrateful passengers. This is your captain speaking!”

All the ungrateful passengers in the cockpit turned their heads to him.

“As you might have noticed, we encountered a slight turbulence—”

“ _Slight_ , he says.”

“—but thanks to the bravery of our brave pilot - which is me, Lance—”

“The worst pilot ever!”

“—normal conditions have been restored—”

“My stomach can confirm that.”

“—and we will be arriving to our destination in just a few dobashes.”

Hunk and Pidge let out twin sighs of relief.

Colrin let go of the chair.

“Please prepare to disembark shortly,” Lance concluded in his most suave voice. Then: “And shut your quiznak, Keith!”

He muted all communications before the Mullet could insult him back. Colrin, bless his heart, gave him the thumbs up.

“Look alive, team,” Lance bounced in his seat. “That roller coaster is waiting for us!”

“I think we already _are_ on a roller coaster,” mutinous Pidge complained.

Colrin leaned forward and into Lance’s space, hands on his hips: “We’ll go to the amusement park _after_ we get those prisoners in the trade zone.”

Lance pouted. “Don’t suck all the fun out of this.”

“I’m not,” Colrin said, "but we’ll have to be quick.”

“It’s not like they can cast us out of the Station. ...I think.”

Hunk’s anxiety was summoned back in full force. “You already know _where_ to land the ship, right?”

Lance dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry, I know what to do.”

‘Be there on time or the Gate won’t open again for five days’, Allura had said. It was a time-sensitive issue, like when they first met the Blade of Marmora at their headquarters. At least there were no black holes involved this time (and thank quiznak for that!).

Still, everyone should put more trust in him. He knew what he was doing.

“It’s not my first time here, remember?” Lance glared around.

Hunk threw an apprehensive look at Pidge. She huffed in reply and started flipping through her pamphlet. That thing was overflowing with bookmarks, notes, and color-coded stuff. _Clearly_ , Lance thought, she _is the n00b here_.

Colrin had apparently reached the same conclusion: “None of you have been on the Station before, either?”

“Just me and Allura,” Lance confirmed. “A while ago.”

Behind him, Hunk let out what he chose not to interpret as a long-suffering sigh.

“Was it a date?” Colrin asked.

“The mice were there as well,” Lance recalled. “They got lost in the House of Mirrors.”

Thinking about that accident always put a fond smile on his face. It had taken them hours to locate Platt again, and when they did Allura had to reassure the little guy that he hadn’t turned into a space giraffe. ‘ _That’s just an illusion, my friend_ ,’ she had said. Then Lance got him some cheese-flavored ice cream and all was fine again. Well, more or less.

Lance’s heart twinged, remembering how nasty those Mirror Dreams could be. Allura had seen herself as an eight-feet tentacle monster, while Lance had spent some quality time with huge bat ears, wrinkles around his eyes, and  a crown of dead leaves resting on frizzy hair. He never forgot to apply his best night cream after that. After all, that awful illusion had landed him in the hospital with a nasty concussion.

“Please, let’s not go to the House of Mirrors,” Hunk begged. “I don't think I could stand it.”

Lance wiggled his eyebrows. “Afraid of all those alternate versions of yourself you could meet, uh?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Hunk gave him a panicked look. “That’s probably why _Shiro_ didn’t want to come here in the first place! Imagine if he ever found out what Sven and Slav are up to in that other reality.”

Yeah. Lance wasn’t sure _he_ wanted to know what was the deal with those two either.

“You’re saying that as it were a tragedy,” Pidge mused, “but I find that scenario so entertaining.”

“Yes, but you are evil, Pidge.”

She shrugged. “Nah. They just write me like that.”

“We’re almost there,” Lance said. “Prepare for docking, Paladudes.”

Hunk and Pidge stopped bickering and tightened their seat belts again.

Colrin activated his Blade mask. “I’m going back to Keith, then.”

Lance hm’ed after him and typed a code in the dashboard. A few ticks later, the Station gave him the all clear to land on the spot he managed to reserve before leaving. He smiled in relief.

Before their comms got blocked, he shot Coran a quick message saying everything was fine and started their descent. He hoped their new friends had made it past the flying toilet seats too.

 

\---

 

All in all, the mission on Galaxy Station 87 was a pretty simple one.

  1. Make it past the Gate
  2. Make contact with a new rebel group
  3. Enjoy almost five days of fun and games
  4. Resume the fight in an endless intergalactic war against furry aliens with     anger problems



The trouble, of course, was that between point number one and point number two there was another one. Lance called it Point One B, where ‘B’ stood both for ‘Boredom’ and ‘Bureaucracy’, a.k.a. the forking red tape.

“Can we, I don’t know, maybe speed things up?” Lance tapped his foot on the ground like a restless rabbit. He _never_ had to wait this long at customs before; not even that time his Abuela tried to smuggle illegal food into the Garrison (‘ _Your garlic knots aren’t worth getting arrested for!’ ‘Don’t be silly, Lancito. Look how they make your skin glow!’_ ).

Lance sniffled.

The Guy at the dock was being an hardass, checking every single line on every single page on their ship manifest. It was a short list, but he liked to re-read it in different ways, shuffling it between his hands. Considering he had six arms, and the middle ones were actual tentacles, things weren’t going very well.

“So you have also three spare rations of food goo in the emergency box under the Flux Capacitor, and another one under the pilot’s seat.”

“Yes.”

“That’s four spare rations of food goo in total.”

“ _Yes_.”

“And there’s a crew of four—”

“A crew of five.” Lance corrected.

The Guy stopped reading. He looked above Lance’s shoulder, reptilian tail raised high above his head, and started counting off with the tip of his pen: (“Two…”) Hunk and Pidge getting supplies ready; (“Three…”) Matt checking something on his arm device; (“And…”) Keith and Colrin keeping an eye on their special guests.

It was only the beginning.

“Passengers list...” The Guy scrolled down his file - his _printed_ file - with the speed and cheerfulness of a dead sloth. “Passengers list…”

Lance suppressed a groan. Who even used pen and paper in space anymore?! Boring bureaucrats of Point One B, that’s who!

“And a crew of five…”

Lance was about to cry. Or explode. Or explode crying, he didn’t know which one. “Yes. A crew of five. Are we allowed in now? We have Galra prisoners to hand over!”

The Guy squinted at him with his five, dull eyes. “Galra prisoners?” he asked. His tail folded in confusion, taking the shape of a giant question mark.

“Yes. Galra prisoners,” Lance said. “Right over there!” He gestured towards the ship.

The Galra prisoners in question were sitting on a bench while Keith guarded them, luxite blade at the ready. The Mullet was doing his best to look suspicious even without his hood and mask on. He simply had too many knives on him.

“Oh,” The Guy said. It was not a good ‘ _Oh’_.

“What now.” Lance felt his right eye twitch in a very Shiro-having-a-Slav-meltdown kind of way. “What’s the ‘ _Oh’_ for?!”

Without saying a word, The Guy walked to the end of the pier. He checked something on the floor, where the ID of their dock was written in huge, bright letters, and looked at his notes again. When he came back, tail literally between his legs, he looked distraught. “This is dock H-H-D-S,” he said.

“Yes. It is.” Lance confirmed.

The Guy tapped his pen against his cheek. He got closer and whispered in a furtive way: “I’ve been checking the file for dock H-H-D-Z.”

Lance’s jaw dropped. “WHAT.”

A shrug: “I’ll have to start over.”

Again: “WHAT.”

Unfazed, The Guy took out a new paper sheet and placed it over the wrong one, on top of his _electronic_ tablet device. “Five crew...,” he mumbled, pen in hand, starting the whole tedious process again.

Lance kind of wanted to kill himself.

Noticing something was amiss, Colrin whispered something to Keith who, in turn, scowled at the whole affair. Lance felt the air suddenly grew thin around him. His eyes hurt.

“Did we land in the wrong spot?” Hunk asked, jogging towards him.

Lance pressed the balls of his hands against his eyes. “No.”

Why was it that when he was in charge of a mission _something_ always conspired to make him look so utterly incompetent?!

“And how many Galra prisoners you said you had?” The Guy asked again.

“Four!” Lance exploded (not crying). “That’s four, you can count them!” He gestured wildly at the Galra commanders. _Again_.

Colrin raised a silent eyebrow at his outburst, while Keith finally summoned his infamous frown. Only The Guy looked unimpressed; but at least he took Lance’s advice. “One—” he started counting in his squeaky voice.

Lance took a calming breath, throat burning, and gave Hunk a forced smile: “Sadly, we’re in the right place.”

As he hunched down, he noticed that Matt was coming to them. His legs were wobbly and his hair messy from his unplanned nap.

Lance didn’t need to fake his grin this time: “Hey, glad you’re awake.”

“Yeah, I’m surprised I already am.” Matt raised his hand in a quick greeting before pressing it against the back of his head. “My little sister sure doesn’t pull any punches.”

The way he said that - with the same irked fondness that Lance used when he talked about his nieces and nephews - restored Lance’s good mood at once. “Did your contacts made it through the Gate?” he asked.

It was meant to be a rhetorical question, but Matt didn’t answer the way he was supposed to: “Most of them did,” he grimaced.

Okay, fine. Good mood gone. “What do you mean?”

“They sent me a message, before the Gate closed. Two of their ships got in. The third was late at the rendezvous point. It went off course and was forced out of the Station’s orbit.”

“That’s… not good,” Hunk noted.

“No,” Matt agreed. “They think the ship made it out fine, but the Station has already blocked outside communications, so we won’t know for sure until they get restored.”

“Five days is a long time to go without updates,” Lance said.

Matt mulled it over. “We can still go ahead with the plan and get the prisoners to the rebel group.”

“Did they tell you where they landed?”

“No,” Matt looked lost for a second. “They were still awaiting for confirmation from—”

“They got assigned to dock N-O-T-P.”

“What?” They all turned at once.

The Guy didn’t take his eyes off his notes. “Your so-called rebel ships landed on dock N-O-T-P about 67 ticks ago, after a standard inspection,” he explained in a weirdly competent manner.

Lance tilted his head: “You know that?”

“Of course.” The Guy handed him a pen, back straighter and gaze more focused than before. “Now sign on the dotted line.” His high-pitched voice was gone, replaced by husky baritone.

Lance got the feeling they had just been played. “You’re with the Rebels?” he asked, adding a little twirl to the ‘y’ in ‘Loverboy’.

“No. I’m Sanrin.” A flash of pointy teeth. “I’m the Chief of Security here at the Station.”

 _Wait a minute!_ It was Lance’s turn to squint. “You were just pretending to check those stupid lists, weren’t you?”

Sanrin gave him a smug grin. “What do you think?”

Lance thought the guy had been _buying time_ for something. “What do you want from us?”

“Something I already got.”

“Are we in trouble?” Hunk worried.

“Not anymore,” Sanrin said.

“Not… anymore?” Lance echoed.

“You didn’t mention you were bringing in prisoners when you asked permission to land.” Sanrin nodded towards their ship, where the others had started listening in. Keith, being the hothead he was, activated his mask, ready for a fight.

“Look, Chief,” Lance tried to prevent a murder, “we’re in the middle of a secret operation against the soon-to-be former Galra Empire—”

“Kind of secret,” Hunk elbowed him in the ribs. “This guy knows all about it now”, he whispered, not whispering at all.

“Yeah, I got that Hunk…” Lance not-whispered back. Then, louder: “We couldn’t risk tipping off the Galra by telling the Station about them.”

Sanrin shrugged. “Not my problem, ain’t it?”

If there was a sentence that could make Lance lose his head in zero seconds flat, that was ‘not my problem’. He gritted his teeth, all peaceful thoughts forgotten. “Look—”

Matt seized him by the arm. Lance stumbled back.

“Trade station regulations in this quadrant make it clear,” Matt told Sanrin. “Pilot, crew, registered passengers: the rest is _cargo._ ” His right hand was holding his staff so tight that his knuckles had gone white.

Sanrin didn’t seem bothered by that. He shook his head, his tail hovering over them like a dark, reptilian cloud. “On Galaxy Station 87 we don’t care about trade station regulations.”

Lance snorted. Yeah. He could easily believe that: no outside interference, and no Galran nor Coalition influence. The Station had its own laws, which was probably why the new Rebels had insisted they met there. Lance had known that little detail would come back and bit them in the rear at some point; he had just hoped to get his hands on some cotton candy first.

“—And we care even less about any kind of prisoners or so-called secret operations,” Sanrin continued, eliciting a growl from Keith.

Pidge marched closer, another small bottle of anger about ready to burst: “What do you care about then?”

“Numbers.”

Pidge faltered. “...what?”

“It’s easy,” Sanrin explained. “We can’t take more guests than our safety standards allow.”

Lance’s brain froze for a second. _Is this guy for real?!_ “You’re kidding, right?”

“That’s never been an issue before!” Keith shouted. He was still standing beside their Galra prisoners, but Lance feared he was about _this close_ to leave them unsupervised to cut the guy’s head right off. Colrin seemed to agree with him, judging by the way he was holding Keith back, one hand against his chest.

But Sanrin cared about any of that? Nope. Of course he didn’t!

“That’s how we run our _business_ here,” he said, staring at them in turn like they were idiotic children. “Nevertheless, you’re lucky. That Rebel ship of yours that didn’t make it in? It had enough people on board to assure the safe stay of your cargo over there.” He gestured towards the Galra prisoners, who didn’t seem to appreciate being referred to that way.

Keith shut them up by activating his luxite blade.

Lance let out a short whistle. “We’re cool then, man?” he tried.

“For now,” Sanrin confirmed. “Unless you’re hiding more people from us.”

“We aren’t,” Lance said.

Sanrin looked at them all up and down: “Off you go then.” He turned off his tablet in a grand gesture of faith.

Keith and Pidge looked a little less murderous after that. Matt still didn’t let go of his staff, but his grip around it relaxed and in the end he backed off with a gruff: “Fine.”

And everything did seem fine... until Hunk did a very Hunk thing: he stuck his nose where it didn’t belong - right in Sanrin’s face.

“Uhm. Sir...? Boss? Your Chief-ness? Just out of curiosity… what happens to the people that land here, but you can’t allow to stay on the Station?”

Sanrin looked at him for a long second. “Well, we don’t allow them to _stay_ on the Station.”

“But if the Gate is already closed when you find them, how do you get rid of…” Hunk trailed off. Sanrin’s eyes had driven his attention to one particular attraction of the amusement park.

The roller coaster roared in the distance: a dull, hollow sound that shook Lance to the core.

Hunk gulped, pale in the face. “Oh. You launch them in outer space,” he whimpered. “Literally get rid of the problem. That’s… very effective.”

“Indeed it is.” Sanrin gave Hunk a couple of powerful pats on the back with his lower set of hands. Hunk squeaked.

“Well, enjoy yourselves,” Sanrin crackled, pointy fangs now in full display.

“We’ll try,” Lance grumbled. He slid closer to Hunk to make sure his friend was still breathing. (He was. Just barely.)

“By the way,” Sanrin called back to Lance. “Thanks for the autograph, Paladin! My son will love it!” As he walked away, he raised his tentacles and waved his notebook in the air like a trophy.

Lanced watched him go with a mix of relief and dread. He just hoped that Sanrin’s kid didn’t take after his asshole parent; after all, he’d given him one of his best twirly signatures!

A sniffle brought him back to earth. Or, well, to the Station.

Hunk started moving again; and, after him, the rest of his friends broke out of their stupor.

“Well, that was mildly disturbing,” Pidge said. She took off her glasses, using it as an excuse to send several glances in her brother’s direction. Whenever she caught Matt rubbing his head, she bit the inside of her cheek in disapproval. Another Holt showdown was on the horizon.

But nevermind that. Lance’s biggest problem was still his best friend. Hunk was THIS CLOSE to start bawling. Lance tried patting his back again: gentle nudges that brought a little color back to Hunk’s cheeks.

From a few feet behind them, Colrin made a disappointed noise. “I guess no-one feels like trying out the roller coaster anymore.”

Lance looked at the park outline in the distance, then back at their battered ship. There was a toilet seat stuck on their right wing; it had space kittens on it.

“You know what?” he folded his arms. “I think I’m officially better than that roller coaster now.”

There was a moment when everyone groaned at him. Then, one by one, they tried all sorts of things to hide their smiles. Colrin’s body was shaking with laughter as he pressed his face against Keith’s shoulder to mask his amusement. Even the Mullet himself was smiling.

Lance tugged at the collar of his armor. “Yeah, yeah. Go ahead and make fun of Lance.”

At least that made everyone forget that their day had started with a few more death scares than the usual. Lance sighed; it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.

 

\---

 

 _Fact_ : they had official permission to leave the docks.

 _Also a fact_ : after their not-so-nice chat with Sanrin, Lance didn’t want to take any chances.

While Hunk finished fixing up their right wing, Lance dove back into the ship to check their hotel reservations - all the while ranting about how much the Station’s rules sucked.

“It’s not like we’d bring those commanders to the Tunnel of Love!” Or a space pizza place. Or any fun place, for that matter. “Power hungry losers don’t deserve nice things.”

Lance was still mumbling to himself when Colrin appeared at the door. He was sporting his usual grin, and he stretched his arms up as he came closer. “So much for ‘fun for the whole family’, uh?” he asked, leaning against the panel on Lance’s right.

“Uhm,” Lance scrolled through the screen, a little annoyed at… well, basically at the whole universe.

Colrin noticed it. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” he said, too quickly for it to be true. “Yeah, sorry. I’m just double-checking our reservations at the hotel.”

 _Three rooms; four days; breakfast and dinner included_. It all seemed in order, but so had their request to dock. He really didn’t wanna risk having to sleep inside the ship; it was way too small for the six of them, and by now everything smelled like evil Galra warlords: wet fur and deceit.

“I hope they don’t put children through that kind of thing,” he added as an afterthought, thinking of Sanrin’s fake checklists.

Colrin seemed amused by his confession. “I doubt many families with children are in the prisoner-trading business.”

“Well, we shouldn’t be, either,” Lance said, a little more forceful that he had intended.

Handing prisoners over to independent rebel groups was _not_ something Team Voltron did everyday. The Blades were more suited (ah, suited!) for that kind of thing, which is why Kolivan had sent Keith and Colrin over to help: they were ready to do whatever it took to complete their mission; and they did it well. Still, Lance would have been way happier if this whole thing had involved food instead of actual living beings, despicable as they might be.

“You don’t like this place very much, do you?”

Something in Colrin’s voice made Lance suddenly uncomfortable. He tried to conceal it by turning around with a jump. “Are you crazy?” Legs stretched apart; hands on his hips; power pose on. “I _love_ this place! Where else in the entire universe am I going to find an actual flying sharks show?”

Colrin didn’t buy it for one tick. He crossed his arms over his chest. “....but?” he tried again.

“No ‘buts’,” Lance wrinkled his nose, printing out their reservation: solid proof they belonged there. “Sanrin just got to me, really.”

Colrin was about to say something when Pidge peeked inside the ship. “Lance, are you done here?” she looked around the cockpit. “We’re all set up and ready to go.”

“Yeah, I’m just shutting down the system.”

Pidge lingered by the hatch a few more seconds, probably to make sure they hadn’t forgotten anything. “We’ll be outside then...”

“Yep!” Lance waved at her, eyes back on the screen. He inserted the lockdown code (his Dad’s birthday) and turned off the system.

Colrin watched him work in silence and didn’t bring The Issue up again. They hadn’t know each other for very long, but at times he seemed to understand Lance more than Lance liked to admit - maybe even better than Hunk or Allura. For some reason, that made him a bit uneasy.

“Well, let’s hope the whole thing goes smoother from now on,” Corin said, pushing himself away from the wall. “I wanna tag along with Red and see that shark thing too now.”

“Nah,” Lance tried to dissuade him. “Save that for last, man. You and Keith might want to visit the Haunted History House first. It’s the coolest one they have.”

Colrin’s ears perked up. “Yeah? Even cooler than your flying sharks?”

“That’s impossible. But I guess the Mullet will appreciate it more. Main square, third floor: it’s the one with the slick samurai world.” Lance finished shutting down the ship. “Your boyfriend is gonna love that stuff.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lance hates being poked and prodded. :D

“Katie, slow down.”

“Not a chance.”

“There’s no need to hurry.”

“Isn’t there?”

Matt turned around with a pleading look: “Lance, please: tell my sister I’m not dying in the next five minutes.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Lance made a display of his amusement. “Pidge’s got a pretty mean hook. And she actually knocked you unconscious back there, dude.”

Matt gave him a nasty glance.

A second later, Pidge finally stopped dragging her brother up the hill like a mad rabbit. “I did!” she said, halting her march. “So stop complaining: I’m getting you checked out.” She looked around until she found a billboard with the directions to the hospital.

That’s where they were going, the three of them. Matt had made the mistake of rubbing his head one time too much, and now Pidge couldn’t be persuaded to let him go on with his original mission. To be honest, Lance hadn’t protested too much at the change of plan: if he were in her place, he probably would have done the same thing. Plus, Matt did look kind of pasty.

“I’m worried something’s gonna go wrong,” Matt said. “I mean, are we sure sending the nervous guy to a prisoner-info exchange was our best option here?”

Lance puffed his cheeks. “Hey, don’t talk like that about my best friend!”

“Yeah,” Pidge backed him up: “Hunk’s made a lot of progress. He can deal with four muzzled Galra. Plus, he and Keith make a pretty good team.”

“Hunk has soothing powers, really,” Lance added, proud.

“And his bayard turns into a cannon.”

“And all that Blade power combined? You can trust that.”

Matt had to admit his defeat at that. “Fine,” he accepted his fate. “But if they give me any lollipops, I’m not sharing them with you.”

Pidge rolled her eyes and led them through the hospital’s door.

Lance had not be prepared for the chaos that welcomed them to the Emergency Room - or, to be more precise, for the absence of it. There were just a couple of people, waiting in their small chairs: no endless queues, no crying children, no exasperated patients.

Maybe this day was starting to turn around, after all.

Pidge walked over the ticket machine and took a number. “221B,” she read.

Matt and Lance looked up at the electronic display. _Now taking care of: 51A._

Lance really hoped the flying sharks wouldn't be too old to fly, when they finally got out of there.

 

\---

 

“Stop squirming, please.” The pretty doctor had a pretty voice, and Lance was a bit jealous of the protesting Holt under her care.

“I told you you needed medical attention,” Pidge said.

Matt shook his head, legs dangling from the examination table. “Still alive, Katie,” he insisted, a bit sheepish.

Good news: he wasn’t dying. Also good news: he was fine; he just needed to, you know, stay still for a while.

The pretty doctor - an alien with bright magenta skin and butterfly wings - let out a pearly laughter. “And you will stay that way for a long time,” she reassured them. “But don’t visit any of our most daring attractions for a while. Speed isn’t a good idea right now.”

Matt pouted. “I was actually looking forward to that.”

“Tomorrow, maybe. If this says it’s fine to.” She took a small scanner out of her dark-blue coat and held it up. Lance recognized it from the time he got concussed in the House of Mirrors.

Pidge’s glasses twinkled. “What’s that?”

The doctor - Layra, Lance read on her name tag - typed something on the device’s screen. “A Telltale,” she said, hovering it up and down Matt’s head and torso. “It can spot any kind of illness or trauma in just a few ticks.”

“Without any kind of poking and prodding!” Lance added with glee. He hated being poked and prodded!

“Amazing,” the Holts agreed with him, awe in their voices.

Layra blushed a little. The Telltale beeped two times: quick, pleasant noises that got her attention back to its screen.

“Is everything fine?” Pidge asked.

“Yes. Your brother is just a little anemic.” Layra said. “I’ll give you some pills so you can be on your way. Excuse me,” she left the room by actually flying through the open door.

Lance was a little bit in love.

“Get your tongue back inside your mouth,” Pidge said, both amused and disapproving.

Lance wanted to glare at her, but then he noticed she wasn’t talking to him. Matt was all red in the face, staring at the now closed door with stars in his eyes. “That’s your Allura face,” he pointed out, a bit annoyed.

If Matt heard him, he didn’t show it. Instead, he reached for something in his pocket: a green lollipop. “Thanks for the hospital trip, sis,” he tossed the candy to Pidge.

She unwrapped it with glee. “You know, wings aside, Layra kinda looks like Nyma...”

Matt paled; flushed; and then looked away. “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he sulked.

Too smart to get involved in another Holt Bickering Event, Lance started playing around with the Telltale Layra had left behind. He wondered if Coran had something like that hidden somewhere in the Castle; the thing seemed incredibly useful!

He moved the Telltale up and down.

“Lance, what are you doing?” Pidge asked.

“Scanning you for acute troll syndrome,” Lance grinned, earning a giggle from Matt.

A single, loud beep.

“The Telltale says you are leaving us soon,” he faked tears. “I’m so sorry, Pidgeon. I’ll take good care of your headphones once you’re gone, I swear.”

“Give me that!” Pidge jumped up and stole the Telltale from Lance’s grasp. She stared at the screen for a while, brows furrowed. “I _think_ this says I need my eyesight fixed,” she read. “Otherwise, I’m as healthy as a horse.”

“More like a pony,” Lance quipped.

Matt held Pidge back by the collar of her armor, laughing as she tried to kick Lance in the shins.

“Got you where it hurts?” Lance joked. He absolutely loved when he got a rise out of her! It was like he was back on Earth with his brother Marco and—his shoulders sank.

Pidge took one tick to react to his sudden change of mood. She broke free from Matt’s hold with a violent jerk: “I’ll show you where it hurts!” she pointed the Telltale at Lance like a weapon.

“Oh, no! Don’t hurt me!” Lance stood on his right leg like a flamingo, body askew and arms raised in a big X, like he was trying to hide from the device.

Maybe he should have.

As soon as it began scanning him, The Telltale went absolutely _insane_. It beeped a dozen times: not the quick, peaceful sounds it had let out for the Holts, but a high-pitched warning that turned its screen a violent red.

The laughter in the room died into a stunned silence. Nobody was smiling anymore.

“What does it say?” Matt tried.

Pidge kept staring at the Telltale with an horrified expression. “I don’t know,” she was shivering a little, hands refusing to stand still while she attempted to decode the angry symbols on the screen. “I can’t make sense of this.”

Lance tried to stay calm. There was nothing wrong with him. He didn’t feel like there was.

“It probably says I’m way too perfect to be real,” he fired his finger guns twice, delighting his audience with a feeble smirk. The Holts didn’t smile back.

Then, after another long silence, a concerned Layra rushed into the room. Pidge gave her the Telltale back at once.

The pretty doctor took it back without a word, reset it, and pointed it at Lance a second time. It was the sad fluttering of her wings, more than the return of that infernal beeping, that told him there had been no mistake.

There was something wrong with him.

 

\---

 

Lance never got sick. Ever. And when he actually did, it was just because he’d been faking a stomach ache to skip school and his stupid guilt managed to make him feel bad about that. Otherwise? No fever, no sneezes... not even a little rash!

He should have known that, the day he’d fell ill, it wouldn’t be pretty.

“It’s the Juniberry Curse,” Layra said.

“The Juni-what?

“Is this actual magic or…?”

“The Juniberry Curse. And the answer is… complicated.”

The once nameless disease had been well-known on Altea, even if it had no real ties to the planet. When King Groggery the Infirm died of it, on a bed covered in juniberries, the name stuck. The Curse affected most alien species in different ways, but two terrifying things never changed.

_First terrifying thing:_ Those affected by the Juniberry Curse grew flowers in their lungs. As the illness spread, they choked on thorns and flowers, unable to breathe once their throats got overrun by vines and leaves. Death came about a month after the first petals appeared.

_Second terrifying thing:_ No matter what, the Juniberry Curse was always triggered by the same thing - unrequited love. It was its pain that fed the flowers, consuming the hosts until nothing was left of them.

Lance supposed there was something poetic in that.

“We have a similar sickness on Earth,” Matt said, quiet and pale. “But it’s fanfiction stuff, not—”

“Fanfiction?” Layra tilted her head. It was her turn to be confused.

“Made up stories,” Pidge explained. “Fake stuff.”

“I see,” Layra read from her Telltale again. “I’m afraid there is nothing fake about this. The Juniberry Curse is very rare but very real.”

“I don’t even feel sick,” Lance said, eyes on the floor.

“The buds are there. They’ve taken over your bronchi and are already spreading to your trachea,” Layra said. “They’re small and haven’t bloomed yet, but once they do...”

“But you can do something, right?” Pidge interrupted her. “We know he’s ill, so we can fix this.”

Layra didn’t answer right away. Lance guessed by the fold in her brow that she was choosing her words very carefully.

“There are only two known cures for the Juniberry Curse,” she said. “The first one is neutralize what triggered it.”

“Meaning?” Lance asked.

“Unrequited love becomes returned feelings,” Matt guessed.

Layra hummed her approval: “Exactly.”

Lance held on tighter on the edge of the table. “And the second one?”

“We can kill the flowers,” she explained. “We get you into surgery, and we burn them out of your lungs.”

“Well, let’s do it then!” Pidge said.

“It’s not that easy,” Layra continued. “Taking away the flowers means taking away the love they sprung from.”

Lance’s heart stopped. “I’d forget whomever I’m in love with?”

“Yes… and no. Based on what we know about the disease, the effects of the flower removal vary from patient to patient,” Layra scrolled down her screen. “But the aftermath should be more like… forgetting what this person once meant to you. You’d remember them, but you’d never feel anything for them ever again.”

Lance let out a humorless huff. “That sounds even worse than choking to death.” Forgetting what their love felt like? He couldn’t imagine anyone choosing that.

As usual, Pidge didn’t agree with him. “It could be your only option,” she pointed out. “Unless we figure out how to make Mrs. Red Lion return your feelings.”

Lance snorted. “That’d be a nice little pet project for you.”

Pidge didn’t bite. “Is it Allura? That Plaxum mermaid? Or that girl Hunk said you had a crush on back on Earth?” she kept on guessing. “What was her name? Jenna?”

“Jenny,” Lance said. “And it’s not her.”

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure anything I've ever felt for her died when she called me a pathetic loser and stomped on my favorite beauty pouch.”

Matt flinched. “That's rough.”

Lance shrugged. “In retrospect, she had always been kind of mean to me. She didn’t like that I had better skin than her.” _Score one for Abuela’s special garlic knots._

“Okay. No Jenny,” Pidge granted. “Who is it then?”

Lance swallowed. For the first time, he felt something alien pushing against his throat; not petals, but fear. His voice came out in a strangled whisper: “No-one.”

Pidge got pissed at that. “Lance, no time to play games here!” she looked about ready to break something. Maybe a Paladin bone. “Come on! You think I would make fun of you for this? I like teasing you, but I’m not... I'm not cruel,” she hugged herself.

“I know you’re not cruel, Pidge,” Lance forced himself to smile, his heart already broken. “And I’ve never been quiet about my crushes. Do you think I’d choose this moment to play coy?”

“Then tell us who it is!” Pidge got upset again.

“I can’t,” Lance said.

“Of course you can.”

“Pidge…”

“Just say the name, man!”

“You don’t understand...”

“Do you want to die because of—”

“I’m not in love with anyone!” Lance screamed.

All the fight left Pidge at once. “...what?” her words sounded small and scared.

Matt and Layra didn’t look any better, confusion clear on both their faces.

Lance looked down again, watching his boots go back and forward, as he swung his legs from the table just like Matt had done minutes before. “I’ve never been in love with anyone,” he confessed. “There was only one time, in eighth grade, with my friend Mark...”

“And?”

“And even then, I didn’t come close to feeling something that could cause… _this_ ,” Lance gestured at himself and then at the Telltale, now back in Layra’s pocket. “I swear, guys: I’m not in love with anyone.”

There. He said it: the sad, painful truth. Somehow, Lance had managed to catch a love sickness without even being in love. There had to be an award for that. One that came with a nice, deadly bouquet.

“With all due respect, you’re wrong.”

Layra’s tone forced Lance to look at her. She had forgotten to use her nice doctor voice.

“You might _think_ you’re not in love with anyone. But I assure you: you are.”

Lance's chest became warm. He felt dizzy and lost. “Then what should I do?”

Layra spoke with no hesitation. “Figure out who stole your heart before the Juniberry Curse kills you. Because if you don't, even surgery might not work.”

“What? Why?”

Layra gave him a sympathetic look: “You need to know what you’re forgetting, Lance.”

 

\---

 

“So, did everything turn out O.K.?”

Hunk’s cheerful face nodded from the screen.

“Oh, yeah!” he smiled happy and wide. “Bad Galra Commanders delivered; infos gathered; and Keith knew of this little bakery that makes tasty pies—”

“You’re bringing back one for us, right?”

“I got another four,” Hunk counted on his fingers. “And garlic knots, if you can believe it.”

“No,” Lance blinked. “I don’t think I can.”

“Well, we have them!”

Hunk took a neat package out of a big box and held it up for the camera. And sure enough: those were garlic knots! Mind you, they were purple and green instead of their usual color, but the recipe was bound to change a little in space (especially considering that Lance’s Abuela wasn’t there working on it). And if they were Hunk-approved, it meant they must taste good.

“I love this place,” Lance said.

“We’re gonna come back now. You’re already at the hotel, right?”

“Yep,” he gave Hunk the thumbs up. “See you in a bit then.”

“I think I’ll get a shower first, though.”

Lance grinned at him. “It’s that evil smell, isn’t it? Evil fur and deceit.”

Hunk waved him off and disconnected the call with an amused roll of his eyes.

Lance, cross-legged on an overly-puffy bed, set aside his communicator and sighed loudly. “He’s gonna be so depressed when he finds out I’m dying.”

“You are not dying,” Pidge said, bored.

“Kinda am,” Lance insisted.

Pidge looked up from her computer. “Well, we’re not _letting_ you die.” She was tapping furiously on her keyboard, trying to find out more about the Juniberry Curse. Judging by the way she was gritting her teeth, she wasn't having much luck.

This love sickness thing was the weirdest situation Lance had ever found himself in — and that said a lot, considering he was one of the Voltron Paladins. And maybe that was the point: he had known all along that he could end up dead any day, during a fight with the Galra, or even thanks to a routine mission. He guessed actually _knowing_ how he would go gave him some kind of peace. Not everyone got that chance.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Lance said.

Pidge’s tapping stopped. “What?”

Lance slid to the edge of the mattress, facing her bed. “When the others come back don’t tell them anything about me.”

“Are you serious right now?”

“Deadly,” Lance wasn’t joking around. Hunk would cry; Keith would get angry; Colrin would get into sad puppy mode. And he didn’t want to deal with any of that. “There’s hardly anything they can do to help with this. They’d just worry over nothing—”

“Really, ‘ _over_ _nothing’_?!”

“—when they could have fun and not think about the war, for once. It’s just five days, Pidge. Four now. Don’t take that away from them, please.”

Pidge took off her glasses. “It’s not fair, asking me that.”

Lance reached out for her. “I know… I’m sorry.” Then, because he was a selfish human being: “Will you do it?”

She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, no sound coming out. Then she grunted. “I will try,” she caved in.

“Thank you.”

Pidge turned on her menacing persona and pointed a finger to his chest: “If I have an _inkling_ the others can help out with this...”

Lance showed her his hands in surrender. “Alright.”

“Matt won’t like this either.”

“I know.”

“I’ll talk him into it,” she went back to her screen. “And I hope you realize I’m probably gonna spill everything to Hunk within the hour anyway.”

Lance half-sobbed, half-snorted. “Yeah. But I should be the one actually telling him. ”

Hunk was his best chance at figuring everything out anyway. (“Hey, Hunk do you know who turned me into a lovesick mess?” “Oh, man. That's easy. Let me write the answer in the frosting of this cake I made!”). Yeah. He could see things going that way, but…

“I don't want to put this on him.” Lance needed to figure it out on his own.

“As long as you’re sure of that,” Pidge said.

Her computer pinged, halting the conversation.

Whatever Pidge’s hacking program had found, it wasn’t good. Lance hadn’t thought it possible, but her frown actually deepened. “What is it?”

She went quiet for a while.

“Pidge?”

“It’s not the first time they treat the Juniberry Curse here,” she said.

“What?” Lance must have heard it wrong. “Are you sure?” he moved to her side.

“I hacked into the hospital’s files,” Pidge confessed. “According to these, there was another patient here, about a year ago, that showed the same symptoms.”

That was… weird. “Why didn’t Layra tell us?”

“I checked her profile earlier. She's been here for less than six months, and this file was well-hidden. Maybe she doesn’t even know about this. Plus, there’s this thing called _patient confidentiality_ , you know?”

Ugh, that wasn’t what he needed to know right now! Lance leaned forward, trying to get a good look at the screen. It was all gibberish to him. “Were they cured?”

“ _He_ was,” Pidge kept on reading. “He underwent surgery and then...” her finger froze on the touchpad. “Lance, it says here that there were some unexpected side effects from the operation due to his ‘unusual exposition to a high-powered form of energy’.”

Lance scratched his forehead. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Pidge opened a new file, then another one, and finally found what she was looking for. “I think that—”

“Hey, I’m back,” Matt opened the door with a soft kick. He had with him the endless supply of energy drinks he had promised Pidge. One big carton box was balanced under his right armpit. “I ran into Hunk in the hallway,” he said. “He gave me some of the food he bought.”

Pidge sprang to her feet and none-too-gently took the carton box from Matt.

“Hey!” her brother complained.

Pidge ignored him. She was staring at the box like it hold all the secrets of the universe. Which, knowing Pidge, might have been true.

“Garlic knots,” she sniffed.

Matt put the energy drinks down on the closest surface available. “Hunk said those were for Lance only. For the two of us it’s just a weird pie and some lion-shaped cookies and… Katie, are you alright? You look a bit, uh, queasy.”

Pidge was mumbling something to herself. “The garlic knots. From a bakery Keith already knew where to find,” she looked at Lance.

Lance frowned. “What are you going on ab—”

“ _Keith_ has been here before,” Pidge said, like it was some grand revelation.

“Yeah,” Matt said, unaware. “He and Kolivan were here for some Blade training, about a year ago. Keith mentioned it before we left.”

Lance felt a bit shivery. One year ago: that was a little before Keith met Colrin. He finally started catching on. But... No, no, no. _No_. That couldn’t be. Lance couldn’t even contemplate the thought that— _no_. “Pidge… come on, that can't be true...” he bargained.

Matt was getting unnerved. “Guys, what’s going on?”

Pidge got the whole story together for them. “Someone else affected by the Juniberry Curse was here before Lance. Someone that, according to the hospital records, had been exposed to a very specific kind of raw quintessence.” She bit her lip. When she glanced at Lance, it was with a mix of pain and regret. “Another Paladin.”

Lance felt a sudden coldness spreading to his stomach. “Keith,” he whispered to himself. _Keith_ had fallen in love with someone, his feelings not returned; and, unlike Lance, Keith had chosen to forget.

The realization made Lance choke up his first petal.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance was not dying from a useless broken heart.

The petal was not blue. For some reason, Lance had expected it to be blue: like his Paladin armor, the waters of Cuba, and the Lion he had to leave behind. But it wasn’t red either, nor marked with dark blood.

The petal was pink, and small in his palm: no bigger than the smallest of his fingernails. It just sat there, like it was the one doing all the observing. Judging Lance, maybe, for not being able to be loved in return. For not being able to figure out who his heart yearned for in the first place.

“Water, water! We need water!”

“He’s not coughing anymore. I think—”

“Should he lie down? Or get up?”

“Isn’t up better?”

“Give him some space, he needs to—”

Lance touched his petal, nudging at it with his fingertips. It wasn’t soft like he had thought it’d be. It was more like a sheet of paper, one of those cheerful confetti he threw around at Carnival parties: not round, nor drop-shaped, but with irregular, sharp edges. It was the kind of thing that hurt without you noticing, just brushing against your skin.

There _was_ a lot of hurting right now. His chest felt like it was on fire: if he focused, he could almost _feel_ the roots of his unrequited love, digging deeper and deeper inside his lungs. He was imagining them, of course; and when he realized that, he noticed something else: several things that made chaos out of his quiet moment.

There were the distant voices of Pidge and Matt; the burning at the back of his throat; definitely _a lot_ of what he liked to call ‘brain frog’. When the dizziness started to fade, he felt like a space mouse had died in his mouth. He said just that, and Pidge grimaced down at him.

_Uh. Down?_

“When did I get on the floor?”

Lance was lying on the empty space between the two beds. He tried to sit up by grabbing the covers on one side and pulling. It didn’t work very well.

“We need to call Layra.” Pidge told Matt.

Lance felt a jolt of panic. “No,” he lifted himself a little further, swatting away the Holts’ hands when they tried to help. “I'm lovesick, not an invalid!”

Chest heaving, he finally managed to climb on Matt’s bed, the petal now resting in the palm of his closed fist. “We’re not saying anything to anyone.”

“What?!”

Lance didn’t know who said that, but both the Holts were now looking at him like he was insane. And, to be honest? He probably was — a little bit at least. But Lance saw it pretty clearly now. “This is not just about me anymore.”

“Because of Keith?” Pidge asked.

“Yes… and no.” Lance said. This was about all of them, really. “That file…” he whispered. “It says there were unexpected side effects to Keith’s surgery, right?”

Pidge, for once, looked at loss. “Lance, what are you thinking?”

Lance was thinking many things at once. Like how Keith had somehow changed, months before, and was now acting so differently around them. Lance had written it off as something either Blade-related or Shiro-related at the time, but maybe that had never been the problem.

Lance brought his left fingers across his right palm, where the petal still was.

What if, instead of being erased, Keith’s old feelings had been replaced? Or maybe even _deflected_ towards someone else...?

Lance bit down his lip. “I need to figure out what went wrong with Keith.”

He really, genuinely liked Colrin, okay? He’d been suspicious of him, at first, because come on! The guy liked Keith’s caustic brand of sarcasm too much to be real. But now he cared about the guy, and -  Lance felt a rusty tang in his mouth - if there was any chance that Keith’s feelings for Colrin _weren’t_ real, then that changed things for everyone. And not for the better.

“I can’t have Layra weed this thing out of me.”

Pidge sighed. “Not yet. You need to figure out who you lo—”

“That’s the whole point!” Lance snapped. “I can’t figure it out. I probably never will.”

“Lance…”

“I’m not in denial or anything. I just _don’t know_ who it is, Pidge,” he swore at himself.

Matt didn’t back down: “Then you need to try and have surgery anyway, otherwise...”

“I know, I know: death, grief, new Paladin to find,” Lance listed with his fingers, ignoring the Holts' protest. “I get it. But you don’t. I can’t go through with this, not unless I figure out what the Juniberry Curse has done to Keith first.”

“Why?” Matt sounded irked.

Lance couldn’t really put it into words; so Pidge answered in his place.

“Because Lance knows for a fact that something could go wrong now,” she said, defeat in her voice. “And because he needs to understand if he could live with the consequences.”

“Yeah.” Lance could not go through surgery without knowing what could be taken from him. He would not live out the rest of his life wondering if his feelings for whoever he ended up loving next might be fake - or meant for somebody else. He would _not_ live a lie, even if that meant letting team Voltron down.

He folded his fingers into his palm, and his nails pierced the soft petal resting there. The proof of his unrequited love withered and turned into bright blue energy before being absorbed by his skin. He watched it disappear with a morbid fascination.

“Give me four days,” he said, without looking up.

He needed all the time he could spare to understand if Keith’s happiness was real. Lance owned it to himself; and, in a twisted way, to Colrin, too. “Four days, and if I can’t figure out what happened to Keith, then you can tell everyone about me.”

Matt wasn’t thrilled by his plan. “Are you crazy?!” he was shaking with barely restrained anger: Lance knew the look. Keith often looked like that, usually when things didn’t get his way. “You should be in the hospital right now, not—”

“Three days.” Pidge said, slowly. “You can have three days. And if _we_ can’t figure things out, you go straight into surgery.”

Matt was ready to object again.

She shut him up before he had the chance to. “We can buy Lance time; and then we make sure he _lives past_ that time.”

Even Lance was taken aback by her proposal. Not after she understood him so well. “Pidge, I don’t want to risk—”

“Lance!” Pidge’s eyes were glistening, but her gaze was steady. “I’m not letting you die. I’ll knock you out and strap you to a bed if necessary. But you’re not dying from a useless broken heart,” she vowed. And that was final.

“Okay,” Lance promised, even if he _knew_ he was lying to her.

“Okay,” she echoed, nodding to herself. And maybe she was thanking him for the lie.

Matt looked at them in turns. “You are both out of your mind,” he said; but he didn’t challenge their decision any further. He was in - or at least he would be.

Lance inhaled deeply from his nose, mouth closed.

He would have to think a little more about the details of his Master Plan – right now, he just knew that a genius pair of siblings would end up hacking a lot of files in the name of true love. In the meantime, Lance needed to get his strength back.

He got up from the bed, stole the bag of food Hunk had given Matt, and chewed on a couple of lion cookies. When the taste of blood was gone from his lips, he washed everything down with one of Pidge’s energy drinks.

“You know what, Pidge?” he teased, savoring the coffee in his mouth. “With all the bonding moments we’re having lately, I’m starting to think you might be the one I’m in love with.”

Pidge stared at him with a weird intensity: “You’re an idiot,” she spat out. She went back to her laptop, opening it with more force than necessary.

Matt looked at her with something like bewilderment.

 

\---

 

Hunk smelled like cinnamon, sea salt, and “...meringue, I think.” Lance sniffed his best friend again, neck and shoulder. “Yeah, definitely meringue.”

Maybe even a hint of potato fries.

“I don’t know, dude,” Hunk went all in and stuffed his nose in his own armpit. “I feel so sweet and sticky.”

Lance slid to the end the bench, away from Hunk’s stickiness. “That’s not a good thing to feel after a shower.”

A snort from the other side of the table.

Lance spun around and raised an eyebrow at Keith, who was munching on his straw. Colrin’s arm was stretched on the headrest behind him, his thumb stroking Keith’s nape.

“What? You got in any sticky situations yourself today?” Lance teased.

When Keith didn’t answer, Colrin slithered closer to him and bumped their hips together in a playful wiggle.

“No,” Keith said. “I just _hate_ this smell.”

“It’s overly sweet,” Colrin said. “Probably one of those scents children are supposed to like.”

Keith’s cheeks were tinted with red, and Lance tried his best to ignore the Twinge of Awkward (™) that ran through him. He could be a bit of an asshole, sometimes.

“Yeah, you better wash it out later,” he suggested, tapping on his glass. “You too, Hunk. I’m not sleeping in the same room with a giant lemon cake.”

On his right, Hunk stopped chewing on his Special Food Goo Burger. “I don’t know, man. I’m afraid to find out what’s in all those other bottles in the bathroom. Some of them had really unappealing black stuff inside.”

“I opened one like that,” Colrin said. “It smelled like barbecue sauce.”

“I wouldn’t mind something that smelt like the ocean,” Lance mused, sipping his drink. “Or maybe peppermint.”

Hunk choked on his food.

“Uh?” Lance asked. “What is it?”

Keith shoved his glass aside. “After all the garlic you ate, you might need a good mouthwash.”

“I do not!” Lance protested. He covered his mouth and smelt his breath anyway. Nothing but sugary-sweet meringue. “Hunk, tell everyone I do not need mouthwash.”

But Hunk just shook his head and ignored his plea for help. “Sorry, dude. This time you’re on your own.”

“The garlic is real,” Keith deadpanned.

“Think about all those missed kisses, Loverboy,” Colrin joined the teasing.

“Why don’t you all—” Lance recoiled. He covered up his flinch with a cough that brought back the taste of blood in his mouth. _Shit_. _So much for a slow-progressing disease..._

“Are we done with the small talk?!” Pidge smashed her hands on the table between the arguing parties, cutting off the conversation. When everyone gaped at her, she bit the inside of her cheek and sat back down between Keith and her brother. “Sorry.” Once again, she avoided looking at Lance.

“You’ve been awfully quiet,” Colrin said, eyeing the Holts in turns. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

Lance exchanged a glance with Matt. “Pidge…” he tried.

“I’m sorry, guys,” she said. “I’m… I’m just tired, okay? And I wanna know how things went with those Galra.”

That wasn’t the complete truth, Lance could tell; but it was enough for Matt to back her up: “We’d like to know if we can stop worrying about the exchange,” he told Hunk.

After that he caught Lance’s eyes again, and Lance suddenly felt small and weak in his civilian clothes. He squeezed his palms between his thighs, shoulders hunched forward and eyes downcast.

Blissfully unaware of that, Hunk turned on his diplomatic mode. “It went great, really. No trouble at all. The Rebels were nice enough, even if—”

“They packed too many weapons for my liking,” Keith interrupted. He crossed his arms on the table and frowned at his drink.

“Well, they’re Rebels,” Matt frowned back. “That’s kind of their thing.”

Keith grunted. “Those guns they had were Galra tech.”

“They probably stole them,” Colrin suggested, helping himself to a space fry from Hunk’s plate.

Lance squared his shoulders. “Well, if they went through the trouble of stealing all that stuff, they’ll probably keep a tight watch on those disgraced generals.”

Keith didn’t look persuaded, but nodded anyway.

“And the intel?” Pidge pressed on.

“Pretty interesting stuff,” Hunk said. He opened a compartment inside his wrist band and held up a memory unit.

“You know what’s inside?” Pidge took the device and let it dangle from her fingers.

Hunk went back to his food. “Yeah, Keith made me check that the thing wasn’t empty when they gave it to us.”

Lance rolled his eyes. _Of course Keith did_.

“And?” Matt asked.

Hunk’s burger disappeared forever. “Supply routes, data on some of the tech the Galra were developing in this quadrant… even some access codes to military bases.”

“Any new ciphers we can use?”

“Well, I found this weird code that—”

The conversation turned into the dull kind of techno babble that made Lance either fell asleep or feel very stupid - or both at once. With two Holts and a Hunk blabbering on his right, and Keith and Colrin being all cozy in front of him, Lance opted for the less complicated conversation with the ceiling above him.

He leaned all the way back on his seat and tilted his head upwards, trying to tune out the nerdiness surrounding him. It wasn’t an easy task: his spacing out usually required him to think about something he could get lost into. If he tried that, right now, the only thing he could conjure up was pink flowers and death.

Lance puffed his cheeks, gulped, and took a peek at the other side of the table. What he saw made him scowl in puzzlement.

Keith used to be as confused as him when Team Punk (plus Matt) started geeking out about something. Right now he just looked like he didn’t know what to do with himself. For starters, he was staring at his glass again. He had gone back munching on his poor straw, and a faint blush slowly climbing all the way to his neck.

There was a reason for that. Colrin was playing with Keith’s hair with the kind of quiet intimacy Lance had seen his parents share.

It was The Awkward (™) again.

Lance jerked forward, coughing, and Matt and Pidge stopped talking at once.

“I need some more water,” Lance said.

There were no petals this time, but he could feel something sticking to the roof of his mouth. “I’m gonna get us more drinks.” He slid out of their booth before anyone could nag at him.

No-one stopped him as he sashayed towards the bar in carefully measured steps. Except he was not really going to get drinks: after he took the first turn left, he dove behind one of the huge columns of the hall. Once out of sight, he made a beeline for the restroom, hand pressed tight against his mouth.

 

\---

 

Matt found him two and half minutes later, bent over what he hoped was the sink of the men’s bathroom.

“You need help?”

“No!” _Yes. Maybe. A little...? Crap_. He coughed again.

If the garlic breath hadn’t been reason enough before, he certainly needed some mouthwash now.

Matt waited until he raised his head again. “Any more petals?” he asked.

Lance looked at himself in the mirror, dilated pupils and messy hair sticking to his forehead. “No.”

He hadn’t thrown up at all, if you didn’t count a little spit. He just felt something pushing from deep inside his chest, trying to come out. Lance hoped it wasn’t a chestburster; that would have been a terrifying side-effect. Awesome but terrifying.

He turned on the faucet, hesitating just for a second when the water came out bright blue and vanilla-scented. “They certainly push the ‘amusement planet’ concept here,” he observed.

Matt leaned against the neighboring sink. “You’re good, you know?”

Lance dared to summon some soap from the nearby dispenser. “Good at what?”

“Oh. Faking, chitchatting. Lying. You choose it.”

Lance tsk’ed. “I’m a _terrible_ liar.” An awful one, actually. “Once I told my Spanish teacher that an otter had stolen my homework to build its nest. I told her it had _flown away_.”

He looked around for a towel or a hand dryer, but the ones he could find (all three of them) were currently being used by another guest: a big, bear-like alien with octopus tentacles.

Lance rubbed his palms along his jeans. “I’m pretty amazing at what my mom calls ‘avoiding the issue’, though.”

Matt couldn’t conceal his amusement. “My mother used to say the same thing to us. Especially when we forgot to clean our rooms.”

Lance waited until the bear/octopus person left. Then he looked at Matt straight in the eye: “You’re good at chitchatting, too,” he said. “What is this about?”

Matt cast a nervous glance towards the door. Lance didn’t know if that was meant as some kind of warning, or as a chance to get out of there. Either way, he guessed avoidance was what got him in the whole Juniberry Mess in the first place. So be it.

He gave a good look under the stalls. When he was sure no-one else was there, he dug the ‘cleaning in progress’ sign out of a cabinet and placed it outside the bathroom.

“I don’t agree with my sister in this,” Matt began.

Lance snorted. “You already made that pretty clear. But you’ve been outvoted, so...”

“This thing involves too many people. Not just your friends, but Voltron and the Coalition too. You two can’t decide what to do all on your own.”

“Actually,” Lance said, “this is all on me. Pidge is just going along with my dying wish.”

“Dying wish?” Matt echoed, wary.

“A figure of speech!” Lance tried to recover from his slip-up. “I’m old and sick, man. And this is _my_ illness! I get to decide how to live with it.”

Or perhaps even die of it.

“So why should it be any different for Keith?”

Lance stilled. Matt had really gone for the kill with that one. “What do you mean?” he played dumb. He knew exactly what Matt was talking about.

“There must be a reason if Keith didn’t tell anyone about what happened to him here.”

“Well, yeah: he’s an emo kid that makes bad decisions!” Lance put his hands up in frustration. “You know his track record”.

_Booted from the Garrison. Almost kicked out of the Blades. Got close to break alliance with several alien planets._ And those were just from the top of his head. Seriously: Keith was a wreck. A well-meaning wreck, but still…

“Or maybe this has nothing to do with decisions at all,” Matt pointed out.

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe Keith doesn’t even _remember_ he had the Juniberry Curse.”

Lance blinked. “Okay, you lost me there.”

Matt took a deep breath. “Layra told us that in some alien species hallucinations and loss of memory are possible symptoms of the Juniberry Curse, right?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, maybe one of those weird side-effects Pidge mentioned is that Keith doesn’t even remember being sick.”

Lance thought it over. He came to a startling conclusion: “That doesn’t change anything.”

“Does it?”

“I was never gonna go and outright ask him about it! ‘ _Hey, Mullet!_ _‘How’s your love life going?’_ Can you imagine? Me and Keith, talking about _feelings_?”

Lance tried to picture the scene. He tried hard. But he couldn’t get past the image of the two of them arguing like that time they got stuck in the elevator to the Altean pool. It was Keith getting angry at Lance for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong, or - worse - feeling all uncomfortable and avoiding him, like it just happened back at the bar.

“Just be careful,” Matt said. “If he finds out what you’re doing—”

“Okay, cut the chase.” Lance felt a flare of rage inside him and, for once, he decided to ignite it: he never liked this kind of games. “Why are you so worried about this? For real.”

And why didn’t Matt want _Pidge_ to find out about how concerned he actually was about this whole thing…? There was something going on. Something other than alien illnesses.

Matt turned around and braced himself on the sink. He looked at Lance’s reflection in the mirror. “Do you remember what happened on Naxzela?”

Lance raised his eyebrows. That was a weird turn of the conversation. “Yeah. Lotor took down that shield and saved our collective behinds.”

“Before that…” Matt trailed off. He tried again. “Before Lotor got there, Keith almost crashed his ship into that Galra cruiser.”

“Say that again?! Why would he—”

“He wanted to save you.”

Lance tried to remember - really _remember_ \- what happened that day. He recalled Voltron; the Rebels; where every ship was. But he couldn’t really tell where Keith had been, or whether his comms had gone dark at some point. He hadn’t been paying attention.

Lance’s whole body went rigid, realizing about how bad things could have gone. About what they almost lost, when he was busy looking another way.

Lance felt faint: “What are you saying?”

Matt came closer and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m saying that you should be careful,” he said. “We might be dealing with a ticking bomb here. Don’t set it off.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance has a plan. It's not a very good plan.

Sleep didn’t come easy that night.

Hunk, bless his heart, kept snoring, mumbling something about candy floss and force fields. That helped keep Lance grounded for a while.

He pretended they were back at the Garrison, not a care in the universe but the next pop quiz. Come morning, there would be another flying lesson; Synthia in biochem would disregard Lance’s attempts at flirting; and Commander Iverson would yell at him for being late, warning him not to fall in Keith’s footsteps.

That had become an actual problem now, hadn’t it...? In some ways, he was even breathing the same air as Keith these days, and he could no longer pretend he minded it.

Lance rolled to his side. The shadows outside moved in sync with the multi-colored lights of the amusement park. Lance tracked one of the red dots that scurried along the glass until everything went out of focus.

When he woke up it was early morning and Hunk’s snoring had faded into a peaceful breathing. Lance smiled at the soft lemon-scented smell that still fluttered around his friend and started his beauty routine: face mask, toothbrush and nail file.

Half a varga later, fully dressed and freshly showered (he used a safe-scented soap from his emergency beauty case), he poked the sleeping Hunk.

“Five more minutes,” Hunk said. He dived under his pillow, limbs akimbo and butt in the air.

Lance glanced at the clock. “Fine, but I’m gonna head out anyway.”

New details about his master plan had come to him in his dreams, and he wanted to act on them ASAP. “Are you gonna be fine on your own, buddy?”

Hunk’s answer came in the form of a powerful snore.

Lance laughed, ignoring the strain that that put in his chest, and left the room with a spring in his steps. He wanted to ask Pidge if she had found out more about the Juniberry Curse in the hospital records. Plus, he needed to run past her some new ideas on how to thread around Keith and Colrin: the last thing he wanted was accidentally ruining the good thing they had going for them.

When he got to the Holts’ room, he heard a rustle from the inside. His hand stopped short of knocking.

It was no surprise that the Pidge and Matt were both awake at this time - they probably hadn’t slept in the first place that night. But the longer Lance stood by the door, the more it became clear that the voices inside were arguing. It wasn’t the ping-pong battle that Pidge and Matt usually played; this was a full-on fight.

“—still in love with—”

“—not dangerous for them!”

“—leading him on.”

Lance could only make out parts of their conversation, but what he got he didn’t like one bit. He stood there, unmoving, trying not to yell at the closed door.

As a precaution, Team Voltron always asked for keys that could open all of their rooms. Lance had his card with him, in his jeans pocket, fingers already wrapped around its sharp edges. He could have gone inside, if he had wanted. But what could he have said to the Holts? That he knew what he was doing? That he wouldn't hurt anyone? None of that was true, no matter how hard he wished it was.

Lance was making everything up he went along, and a lot of things could go wrong. Moreover, he was being a selfish idiot. Lance was very aware of that, and he didn’t need anyone reminding him of his shortcomings, especially not on an empty stomach.

He left the Holts arguing in their room and tried to put them out of his mind - just for a little bit. Then he walked down the corridor and went to find out what was behind door #2.

 

\---

 

First-hand embarrassment. An ungodly amount of fist-hand embarrassment. That’s what was behind door #2.

Colrin greeted him with a nice smile and even nicer manners. That didn’t save Lance from just _standing there_ , feeling terribly out of place and yet determined not to run away until he said what he’d come to say.

“You’re up early,” Colrin pointed out.

When Lance had come in, he’d been bare-chested and barefoot, with only the lower half of his combat suit on. Now he was sitting on the bed closest to the door, wearing a Keith-sized T-shirt with a cute hippo on the front that barely made it to his navel.

“I couldn’t sleep very well last night,” Lance said.

“I see.”

Colrin was tinkering with a set of twin metallic circles that Lance dreamed about when he was a kid. He still did, actually: chakrams were ridiculously cool weapons after all. They could come in handy both for short and long range combat and, although they were light, they were also sturdy enough to help when in a defensive position.

Lance screamed internally. _Of course_ the Mullet had to go and start dating space Xena! That was the level of badassery Keith aimed for, apparently.

“I thought you might be up as well,” Lance said.

Colrin made an understanding noise.

Lance looked over his shoulder and were the second bed was, still unmade. He scratched his cheek with his finger and walked to the window, pretending to look outside. When he noticed that the curtains were closed, he cursed; he could not feign to be interested in _those_! Those were horrible stuff, all gray and dull, with predictable patterns and a rough texture that reminded Lance of his middle school’s chem lab, back in Cuba.

It was probably Keith who insisted keeping the curtains closed, annoyed by the lights outside. _Or because he wanted more privacy_ , The Awkward (™) reminded him.

Lance let the cloth go.

“Was there anything you wanted?” Colrin asked. There was a light amusement in his words, like he knew exactly what Lance had been thinking.

Lance spun on his heels. “Yes,” he said. “I wanted to ask you and Keith something.”

When he didn’t add anything to that world-changing statement, Colrin didn’t seem very surprised. “Okay,” he agreed. “He should be out in a few minutes.”

“Shower?” It was a rhetorical question. Lance could hear the water running on the other side of the wall, where the en-suite bathroom was.

Colrin started playing with his chakrams then, juggling them like they were weightless plastic rings. Lance was hypnotized.

“Let’s hope he grabbed something better than lemon and meringue this time,” Colrin said, “or he’ll be grumpy all day.”

Lance huffed, fingertips tapping a rhythm against his leg. For once, he actually hoped to be wrong about something. He really liked Colrin too much for him to be a lie. “ _When_ is Keith not grumpy?” he joked.

Colrin took his eyes off the chakrams to wink at Lance. “Oh, I know a few scenarios.”

Lance’s heart did an uncomfortable somersault. He told himself to stop being such a kid. “Ah, I bet you do,” he chuckled awkwardly.

_Smooth, Lance. Very smooth._

The shower got turned off. A few ticks later, Keith walked into the room grumbling something about ‘stupid alien shampoos’ as he dried his hair. When he spotted Lance by the window, he startled.

“ _Quiznak_ ,” he cursed, looking around the room and then back to Lance with an angry glare. He had one towel wrapped tightly around his waist and another on his head. “I didn’t hear you,” he said, skin tinted red from the shower (and maybe the annoyance of Colrin oh-so-obviously enjoying the failure of his ninja skills).

As Lance stood frozen there, Keith made a beeline for the small zip pack resting on Colrin’s bed - the one where no-one slept in the night before - and dug out some clothes.

Lance pulled the curtains aside just enough to peek at the amusement park in the distance. Both artificial suns had yet to rise over the Station, and its multi-colored lights seemed brighter than ever before.

“Sorry, man. I just wanted to ask you something.”

“Yeah? What is it?”

In the glass’s reflection, Keith slid inside a pair of black jeans and let go of his head towel. Wet hair was sticking to the back of his neck while he fiddled with a T-shirt.

“Lance?” Colrin’s voice sounded amused when it reached him.

Keith’s was more ruffled: “Would you look this way and explain?”

Lance spun around again. He found Keith fixing his gloves, fingers opening and closing in a long-tested sequence.

“I was wondering if I could tag along with you today.”

“Tag along?” Keith echoed.

“You probably have plans already…”

“I wouldn’t call them plans…”

They both trailed off: Lance scratching his head, Keith looking at Colrin in search for an answer.

It didn’t take long to break the impasse. Colrin stopped playing with his chakrams and put them aside: “What did you have in mind?” he inquired.

Lance took a couple of steps closer to the bed. “I was thinking… you know the Haunted House? I know you probably planned to visit it already—” like Lance himself had suggested, “—but I could, like, come with you? For training? And maybe you could go back alone later, if that’s what you had in mind.”

Lance looked away, not particularly eager to witness the wordless conversation taking place between Keith and Colrin. His proposition had come out a bit more… stupid than he had planned. ...not like he had really planned anything.

The silence was beginning to get to him, though. That wasn’t good. He started fidgeting and tapping his feet to the floor and—

“You want us to train together?”

To his relief, Keith sounded more puzzled than annoyed.

“Matt told me Kolivan makes you train there, sometimes,” Lance said.

The way Matt had described it to him and Pidge, that was hardcore stuff (no surprise there, being familiar Kolivan and his kill-or-be-killed attitude). Apparently the Blades often booked some time at Galaxy Station 87 to put to good use several of its more unconventional attractions; the Haunted House, with its state-of-the-art animatronics, was just the tip of the iceberg.

Lance was wondering how many times Kolivan had let himself enjoy a ride on the Ferris Wheel when Keith interrupted his mental derailing.

“You want to practice with the new form of your bayard.”

In other circumstances, Keith’s guess wouldn’t have been wrong. So Lance nodded - three times, in quick succession. “Yeah. I’d like to see how you guys handle big swords and—” He suddenly realized what he just said, to whom, and where. “I mean my big sword!” And again:  “...for fighting.”

_Oh, man._ An imaginary Hunk was facepalming at him. Hard.

Colrin, on the other hand, chose to outright laugh at him. He fell back on the mattress, hands holding his belly as his body shook with amusement.  “As long it’s _your own_ big sword that  you want to handle,” he said, still giggling.

Lance hid behind his palms in shame. He felt about ready to become the main ingredient of a tomato soup.

Colrin wasn’t done messing with him just yet: “Just so you know, Keith and I aren’t clashing our words together if you’re watching.”

All things considered, Lance kind of deserved that. After all, he was butting in. “I’d like to fight with you,” he said, swallowing his embarrassment.

Colrin sat up again. “Oh, I’m game if Keith is,” he said, serious again. “What do you think, Red?”

Keith was staring with Keith-intensity inside his bag, paying no attention at Lance's putting his foot in his stupid mouth.

“Fine,” he decided. “We can do that today.”

Lance couldn’t believe his luck. “Really?” he clapped his hands together. “That’s great! That’s… thank you!” He remembered his manners.

Keith hesitated. “Are you sure the others won’t want to come with us...?”

“Uhm,” Lance thought about it.

He probably could have used the help, but… well, he didn’t wanna risk another capital-L Lecture from Matt. Pidge would probably be happier to spend the whole day hacking hospital files anyway. And Hunk… to be honest, Lance was afraid Hunk would figure out his ruse in two seconds flat if he came with them. Plus, there was no real chance to drag Hunk to a Haunted House without some kicking and screaming involved.

Lance wetted his lips: “No, it’s fine. It’s better if it’s just us.”

Keith run a hand through his hair, still damp from the shower. “Alright,” he said. He balanced himself on his naked heels. “Until later then?”

“And remember to bring your Paladin armor,” Colrin said, all innocent. The big faker. “We’re gonna need some protection.”

Lance suddenly felt the urge to bolt out of there. “Yeah! Sure! See you later!,” he hurried to the door. “Now excuse me, but I have a snoring Hunk to wake!” And, you know: a list of apparently harmless questions about Keith’s love life to come up with. _Ugh_. He _so_ was gonna get stabbed by a Marmora Blade in that Haunted House!

He run like a madman through the corridors, somehow avoiding collision with a group of alien-schoolers and their vexed teacher.

When he got to his room, he was flushed and sweaty, and his lungs burned in an uncomfortable way. _Quiznak_. He banged his head against the door so many times that Hunk came out to ask him if he had lost his key.

“Just my mind,” Lance whispered under his breath.

“Uh, okay. Cool,” Hunk yawned. He closed the door on his face, scratching his butt.

Lance didn't even take offense at that. The Juniberry Disease must have already fried his brain. What the cheese was he doing, crashing Keith's date…?

 

\---

 

That had to be the most evil, sick, disgusting plan that the Paladins of Voltron had uncovered yet. An abomination spreading its poison throughout the universe. A vision born from a wicked thought. A capitalist nightmare.

“This should be illegal,” Hunk said, munching on a big slice of lemon cake.

“I think it _is_ illegal,” Lance echoed between bites of vanilla cookies.

Breakfast came with the realization that those food-scented waters and soaps they kept finding around the hotel weren’t there just to make them smell good. In fact, they were a diabolical trick the Station used to have its guests eat more around the park.

“It’s a psychological thing,” Pidge said. “We haven’t actually been drugged.”

Lance reached for another breakfast dessert. “What do you mean?”

“Those soaps are designed to expose us to something until we crave for it,” Pidge explained. “Weak minds are the most affected,” she sipped her tea.

Lance swallowed: “Oh.”

He noticed Keith letting go of the small meringue he’d been nipping on.

“Well, this weak mind is very happy with the food here,” Lance said, mustering as much dignity as he could while stuffing his face full of pastry.

“Oh, totally,” Hunk agreed, doing just the same. “Happiness is found in the stomach.”

“So is scaultrite,” Keith said.

Lance made a face. “Ow, gross.”

“So… what’s the plan for today?” Matt asked. He was not even pretending he wasn’t looking straight at Lance.

Which is exactly why Lance stared back in defiance. “I’m getting sword fighting lessons,” he said. He tilted his head towards Keith and Colrin, who was busy wolfing down a whole barbecue on his own. Ah! ‘Weak minds’ his Cuban behind!

The announcement made an impression.

“You’re… training together?” Hunk shook his head like he was trying to get rid of a mosquito stuck inside his skull.

Matt hesitated. “Are you sure that’s a good—”

“That’s a wonderful idea!” Pidge jumped in, elbowing her brother. “Allura always says you’re terrible with that sword stuff!”

Keith snorted. Colrin chortled. Lance gaped: “I just have to find my footing!” he protested, outraged.

“You sure do,” Hunk said.

“You were a leg,” Colrin pointed out. “I’m sure it won’t take you too long to figure everything out.”

“I’m working my way to the top!” Lance agreed. “Red wouldn’t have called me if I couldn’t manage.”

He poured himself a cup of water and gulped it down, chewing on the liquid as it were a tasty snack. As he did so, he noticed that Hunk was staring at him with a weird, glazed look.

“What?” he wondered out loud. Did he forget to clean away some of his beauty mask? Or did That Pimple make a comeback…? He thought he had gotten rid of that thing!!! He started touching his face all over.

That’s when Hunk sprang forward, seizing Lance by the lapel of his jacket. “You want to _work_ on a vacation?!” he screamed. His round face was now very close. Too close. Lance could see his pores.

“Uhm… yeah?”

Hunk looked at him up and down. “Are you sure you feel okay?!” There were actual _tears_ in his eyes.

“I’m fine!” Lance protested, escaping Hunk’s grip. “Healthy as a seahorse!” he patted his sternum.

Bad decision, of course: Pidge and Matt exchanged a quick look behind Hunk’s back.

“Anyway!” Lance didn’t lose his smile. “We’re going to the main Haunted House, so…”

“Oh,” Hunk’s worry and consequent amusement faded into ashen mortification. “Yeah. No. Totally not joining you in there, dude.”

“Don’t worry,” Pidge took out her monstrous pamphlet, still alive despite being stabbed countless times with post-it notes and color-coded arrows. “I have three tickets for the Science Fair.”

“You do…?” Matt asked, dubious.

“Yeah. I do,” she confirmed. “There are some computers I’d like to play with. For a personal project.”

Was Lance imagining it or did she gave him a weird look just now...?

“Sounds... fun?” Keith tried.

“It does!” Hunk confirmed. He was full-on geeking out. “This is pretty fascinating stuff,” he said, skimming through the fair’s program Pidge handed him.

“It’s a pretty big event. It probably will keep us occupied all day,” Pidge adjusted her glasses. And yep: she definitely looked at Lance this time.

Fine, fine. He could take a hint.

...he just needed to understand what the hint meant.

Keith got up from his chair. “We’d better get going,” he told Lance.

Colrin gulped down a glass of orange juice-looking stuff. “The queue at the House is long, and we never booked a room.”

“Oh, alright then.” Lance braced himself and said his goodbyes. “Lead the way, samurai!”

Keith rolled his eyes.

And that’s how the best, worst day in Lance’s life began.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a date!

So.

Keith and Colrin. Colrin and Keith.

The Mullet and the Warrior. The Warrior and the Mullet.

There was a story there, and Lance needed someone to spill all the kid-friendly details. You know: the bonding moments, the fights fought neck and neck… all the sickeningly sweet stuff about falling in love in the midst of an intergalactic war.

It shouldn’t be too hard: somehow Lance felt like he already had all the pieces of the puzzle. He just needed to put them together by asking the right questions at the right time.

“Good weather today, uh?”

Yeah, maybe not that one.

“What?”

Surprise, surprise: Keith wasn’t even listening to him.

Lance cleared his throat - no petals this time - and tried again. “The weather,” he said, louder. He’d... approach _The Issue_ from a couple of galaxies away. To be safe. “The sky is nice today.”

Keith fell out of step.

Lance flinched at his own idiocy: small talk had never been one of the Mullet’s strong suits, and his time with the Blades really didn’t help his cause there. Which is exactly why Lance was surprised when Keith stopped walking, tilted his head back, and looked at the sky above them.

“Yeah,” Keith said, “it’s all bright and blue.”

Lance did a little double take. But no: Keith wasn’t making fun of him; he was staring up, lips tilted in a small smile. The guy honestly thought that a bright and blue sky was a nice thing to see. And… well, he was right. Living among the stars was fun and all, but staying in the Castle of Lions meant leaving something behind: his family, his old friends… even the warmth of the Sun.

Sometimes visiting another planet helped Lance keep his homesickness at bay, but nothing ever came close to his memories of Varadero beach. There was no other place in the universe like it, with its clear waters and endless sand. Even the Station’s twin suns couldn’t make up for that.

Lance felt his heart ache, longing for something he would never give up as lost.

“It must remind you of home,” Colrin said, something like envy in his voice.

Lance realized he had never asked Colrin where he came from... or if he even had someplace he called home. But right now it didn’t seem right to break the spell. Lance wanted to be selfish for a little while longer. He let himself enjoy the view for a few more moments, a big grin on his face. “Yeah, it’s great.”

When finally looked away from the sky, he noticed that Keith was peering at him, a small smile on his face. But maybe that was a trick of the light; the next time Lance blinked, Keith already had his back to him.

“Let’s go,” Keith said. “We’re gonna be late.”

Colrin gave Lance a pat on the shoulder and shoved him forward: “The House must be packed by now,” he said.

As usual, he was not wrong.

When they got to the Haunted House (47 floors of fun and games all in one dusty-looking package), the queue seemed endless. There had to be at least 89 million people in front of them - including a space nun, a feathered kid playing with a Yellow Paladin doll, and a teenage couple who enjoyed kissing very much.

“That’s a lot of people.” Lance didn’t remember the park being this popular the last time he was there. He informed everyone of that, as the three of them approached the end (uhm, the beginning?) of the queue.

Once there, Keith raised on his toes to peek over the crowd. “This will take too long,” he frowned.

“We should come back later,” Colrin suggested. “Maybe see that flying shark thing first.”

Keith kept browsing around. A few ticks later, he nudged Lance’s elbow. “I think that shop over there will let us book a stage.”

Lance had gotten distracted by the two teenage girls snogging in front of him (their skin changed colors where they touched!), so what Keith said took a second to register.

“Wait,” he protested when he saw Keith jogging towards a small building on the other side of the street. “I don’t think they take reservations at all here!”

“You stay there!” Keith called back. “It’ll only take a minute.”

Lance watched him go through squinted eyes, arms crossed on his chest. “I don’t know how you can stand him,” he muttered under his breath.

Colrin laughed out loud. “I’m pretty sure you do.”

“And I’m pretty sure you can’t make reservations here,” Lance insisted.

“Kolivan did,” Colrin remembered him. “Maybe they changed the rules since the last time you were here.”

“Mmm,” that was possible. After all, even on Earth things changed pretty quickly when it came to amusement parks. He remembered crying for days when they closed down his favorite aquarium when he was in elementary school.

Tired, Lance leaned against the railing that delimited the queue. He hoped that the food parlor where he got ice-cream for Platt was still open; that thing had been _heavenly_.

Colrin flanked him. “What are you thinking about? You’re drooling!”

Lance was quick to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m not drooling!” he denied.

He might have raised his voice a little more than necessary: the snogging girls stopped their kissing marathon and glared at him with the power of their twelve combined eyes.

Lance offered them an apologizing smile. They both turned away, muttering something that didn’t sound very nice.

Colrin chuckled again. Lance sighed and led him further away from the queue.

“Look…” he began, taking another couple of steps away from the upset teenagers. “I’m sorry I kinda crashed your date.”

Colrin studied him for a long second: “It’s okay,” he finally said. He leaned in close, bending forwards with his hands on his hips, so he could whisper a secret in Lance’s ear. “I’m not afraid of the competition.”

Lance felt his chest explode. “That’s not it!” he looked left and right to make sure no-one had heard them.

Colrin pulled back and beamed at him: “Don’t worry. I’m just making fun of you!”. Then, more serious: “I figured there had to be a good reason for asking Keith to hang out like that.”

“Yeah. The sword thing—”

“Is that it?”

Silence. Lance sank his hands deep in his pockets. “It’s… complicated,” he said, swinging his jacket back and forward. “But it’s probably not what you think.”

Colrin scrunched his nose. “Meaning that you don’t want to be friends with him?”

“No! I mean, yeah. I do want to be friends. You know that.”

“Okay. So you think there’s nothing that you can learn from him?”

“No…”

“That you’re not a good team?”

“No. Okay. Fine!” Lance surrendered. “It’s _exactly_ what you think. Happy?”

“Very,” Colrin winked.

Lance changed his mind: he downright _hated_ this guy. He was enjoying this conversation way too much.

“There is something else you’re not telling me.”

“It’s nothing to worry about,” Lance said. “Not yet,” he added, because he thought he owned Colrin at least a little bit of truth.

The Blade lost all mirth. He stared at Lance with a wary look until the silence became uncomfortable; then he nodded. “Fair enough,” he sighed. “Just do me a favor, alright? Be careful. There are a lot unresolved issues with him.”

Oh, didn’t Lance _know_ that?! Unresolved issues were what all this whole Juniberry thing was about!

His chat with Colrin was quickly becoming the remake of his bathroom encounter with Matt: “Listen—” Lance began. He didn’t know what he was about to say exactly. And he never found out.

Keith was already jogging back. “I was right,” he said. He showed them a purple ticket with the logo of the Haunted House on it. “The sixth floor is ours.”

Lance’s eyes got bigger and bigger. “A whole floor?!” he screeched. “How did you manage it?”

“I didn’t,” Keith shrugged. “It was all Kolivan’s work. The Blades have a standing reservation for some of the attractions here.”

Lance was speechless. “For real?!”

“I bet you asked nicely,” Colrin told Keith.

“Yeah. A heads up is usually required, but I convinced the Haunted House Manager to let us in.”

Lance let out an impressed whistle. “Look at you, threatening people!”

Keith flushed in annoyance. “I just asked. _Nicely_.”

“Of course you did,” Lance and Colrin chorused.

Keith didn’t indulge them. He headed for the Haunted House, telling them to hurry up so they could do something useful with their morning.

Colrin followed after him with a cheerful laughter. Lance, on the other hand, waited a few more seconds before joining them. He kept a couple of steps back and watched with fascination when Colrin touched Keith’s side and whispered something to him, pointing at something down the street.

As they walked past the queue, Lance smiled and said goodbye to the snogging ladies (now about 10 feet closer to the House than the last time he’d seen them) with one of his flawless bows. They both rolled their eyes at him - again. _Uhm, whatever_.

At least the feathered kid gave him a much warmer goodbye. He recognized Lance from the Voltron shows and asked for his autograph, bouncing on his talons as he fired a million questions at him.

“Why don’t you pilot the blue kitty?”, “Are Pidge and Hunk dating?”, “Is it true that Shiro is six years old?”, “Why is your coat green and not blue?”

“‘Cause I’m undercover,” Lance explained.

The kid stared at him in awe. “Is it the same as being a spy?”

“A little,” Keith said.

Lance turned to see his friends strolling back.

“We thought we had lost you,” Colrin told Lance.

“I wasn’t lost!” Lance protested. “I was answering some fan questions!” he motioned at the alien kid, who kept beaming at him.

“I see,” Keith said, bemused.

The kid looked at them up and down in excitement. “Are you on a mission right now?!” he grabbed the railing with his fluffy hands.

“We are,” Lance confirmed.

“What’s the mission?”

“We can’t tell you,” Keith cut in.

The kid frowned.

Lance went to the rescue. “Sure we can!” he said. He pointed at Keith with his thumb. “You see, this guy needs protection.”

Colrin chuckled.

“Are you his bodyguard?”, the child asked.

“No!” Keith denied as Lance confirmed: “Yup! I sure am!”

Keith folded his arms. “Then I’m dead already.”

The kid, smart as he was, ignored his retort. “Is he a prince?”

“No,” Lance said.

“A princess then?”

Keith’s eyes went huge with outrage. “Do I look like a princess?” he asked. He had his hands in his stupid mullet, and he was looking at his clothes: red jacket, black jeans, and dirty boots. And he was serious. He was asking seriously if he could be taken for a princess.

“Only in your sleep, Rose Red,” Colrin said. He was holding his side and biting down on his lip, trying not to laugh out loud. The two cranky teenagers shared a giggle.

Lance himself was having trouble keeping a straight face. He bent forward, hands on his knees, so he was about to the kid’s height: “Nope, he’s not a princess,” he said. “He’s just Keith.”

The kid rummaged through his Voltron knowledge: “I thought Keith was a girl.”

“Canon is very confusing,” Colrin said.

Keith looked away, mortified, and Lance bit down on his cheek. “That’s a long story,” he told the kid.

“Is that an _undercover_ story?” The alien jumped up and down, excited again.

Before Lance could answer, Keith seized him by the sleeve of his jacket and tried to tug him away. “It’s an _awful_ story,” he declared, like swapping places with Allura was some kind of punishment.

“An awful story with a happy ending,” Colrin reassured the kid as they walked away. “Like Zarkon’s.”

An idea hit Lance. “You know what?” he yelled back to the kid. “We’ll include it in the next Voltron show!”

Keith growled. “We will not!”

“We will _yes_!” Lance decided. It was about time he got an action figure of his own, after all.

 

\---

 

Lance was starting to regret all his life choices.

He was also starting to think that ‘standing reservation’ had to be a secret code for something, because at sixth floor of the Haunted House looked like a Blade of Marmora base, moody lights and everything. There were also several secret panels with all sorts of interesting stuff inside: swords, guns, knives, blasters… you got the picture.

Keith punched in a couple of codes and retrieved all they needed for their sparring session. That included a very tight, very clingy, very stupid bodysuit for Lance, who was currently feeling like an eel wrapped in tinfoil.

“I _told you_ to bring your Paladin suit,” Colrin mocked him.

Yeah. Well… excuse Lance for not being able to remember everything in the midst of a health emergency! But… whatever: he could deal for one day. He just wished that the Marmorite suit was more kind to him.

“Are you sure this is the right size for me?” Lance twisted around and looked at himself in the mirror for the umpteenth time. “I feel 89 million degrees hot with this on.”

Keith finished adjusting the arm guards of his own suit. “It’s made for optimizing fighting skills, Lance, not to flatter your figure.”

“Yeah, no,” Lance squinted at him. Did the guy need to be so judgy all the time?! “I meant that I _feel_ hot. Like in ‘not cold’,” he airquoted everything. “Warm, you know?”

Plus, his butt looked as flat as a pancake in that thing. At best he could score a ‘lukewarm’ oh the Hotness Scale right now.

“Oh.” Keith avoided to look at him and his pancake-butt in favor of staring at the more appealing vision of Colrin slipping into another clingy suit. He was all flushed already.

When Lance let out a long-suffering sigh, Keith frowned (again. Why was the guy always frowning?!) and turned his mask on. “The suits are made to adjust body temperature,” he informed him. “Maybe you just need to get used to it.”

Lance stepped away from the mirror, right hand raising unconsciously to his ribs, and nodded. “We’ll better get started then,” he took out his bayard, turning it into his new broadsword. He issued his challenge: “Show me what you got, Mullet!”

Keith got a lot of things. A lot. He had Lance on his back in two seconds flat without even needing to draw his weapon.

Colrin was laughing his head off in the background, and Keith gave his boyfriend a satisfied smile.

Lance rolled over, dizzy and confused. The whole room seemed to crumble around him

_Choices and regrets, Lance. Choices and regrets_ , said a Hunk-like voice in his head.

There was a pressure that hadn’t been there before where Keith had pushed him, and the weight in his chest was cutting off his air supply. Forget everything about warmth: he was drenched in sweat and shivering, curled up on the floor.

Keith’s smile melted away. “You okay there?”

Lance forced himself to his hands and knees. Somehow, he was still holding on to his bayard. He focused on its familiar grip.

_Breathe in._

_Breathe out._

Keith crouched down in front of him.

Lance shook his head. The world stopped spinning. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m fine. You must have cheated, somehow,” he grumbled.

“He’s always cheating,” Colrin indulged him.

Keith offered Lance his hand and helped him up, steadying him when he almost tripped on his own feet.

“Sorry, I forgot you don’t heal as fast as I do.”

Lance tried not to wince at that. It was true that the Galra (and hence Keith) got a little help from Mother Nature in the healing department but, knowing what he knew, Lance had to wonder: how sick had Keith been, when he got ill from the Juniberry Curse…? And how long had he suffered, before coming to the Station and have the flowers removed? He couldn’t come up with an answer that wasn’t depressing.

Lance activated his own mask, glad to hide behind it. “Don’t get easy on me, Mullet,” he said. “You’ll regret if you do.”

He got into a fighting stance, broadsword ready.

Keith didn’t hesitate. He was on him again, weapon clashing against Lance’s own in a clang of metal and sparkles of light. Colrin cheered from the floor, winching or exulting in turns as they fought.

For all the time they sparred, Lance chose to ignore the warnings that kept blinking on the far right corner of his datascreen, where the suit monitored his vital signs. They were all insane numbers anyway.

Keith didn’t play around. He kept pushing and pushing with his stupid (useful) advice: “Move your feet like that,” “Don’t do it that way,” “Bend your knees just so” ...except Keith didn’t use his words. Nope: Keith was a wordless adviser: he _beat_ the lesson into you.

Lance was left a huffing mess as Keith moved them around the room and activated all the simulations available. “To keep things interesting,” he said.

By noon, only King Groggery the Infirm knew how many hours later, they had fought dozens of killer robots, an army of ninjas, and the obligatory pack of fire breathing dragons. Lance took great pleasure in telling Keith he would keep his maidenly virtue safe from their dirty paws. Or at least he did, until Keith asked him in a very confused tone what a ‘maidenly virtue’ was.

Lance stumbled on nothing, and before he could figure out if the Mullet was yanking his chain, he found himself pinned to the wall by a luxite blade. He tugged at his cowl, trying to dislodge the knife currently too close to his neck. But the more he tried to get himself free, the more the stupid thing seemed to hold. A Galra trick, Lance was sure of it!

“Stupid Marmora stuff!” he complained, pulling harder.

As to answer him, the blade glinted a pale purple color.

_Spooky_.

“That won’t work,” Keith said from a few feet in front of him. “I’m the only one who can take it out now.”

Lance deactivated his mask, feeling his damp hair cling on his neck and forehead. “A Sword in the Stone situation, uh?”

Keith tilted his head. Lance wondered again - for a brief moment - how out of touch the guy really was with anything related do pop culture. Well, Earth pop culture at least. But apparently Keith got the reference: “I guess so,” he said. He came closer, but not before bending down to pick something golden and shiny from the fallen robot at his feet.

“That’s the heart of the dragon!” Lance yelled.

Keith’s “Yup” sounded even more smug, distorted by his mask.

“But you cheated!”

“I did not,” he stopped right in front of Lance, heart in his right hand. “I won fair and square. No dark magic involved.”

Lance sighed. “Fine. Just let me go, Morgana,” he tugged at the dagger again.

Keith reached for the weapon with his free hand. As soon as his fingers touched the hilt, the blade began to shine again. This time, though, something was different. Lance felt a weird energy coming from it, somehow resonating within him. It wasn’t like the painful hiccup of a petal being set free, but a gentle buzzing, spreading from his chest to his arms and legs. Lance realized that Keith must feel it too, because he faltered and then froze, hand still on the blade.

Lance took the incident as proof that Pidge wasn’t wrong: once, Keith had been affected by the Juniberry Curse as well. Somehow both he and his Blade were now reacting to the same corrupted quintessence growing inside Lance. The thought made him a bit nauseous, the flowers scratching his lungs in a violent cry for attention.

“Well, that was weird.”

Lance looked up at Keith. Their faces were just a short breath apart, and he hated that he couldn’t see his expression. Was Keith frowning again? Or was he troubled by that weird feeling, so familiar and so foreign at the same time? And the worst of them all: was Keith _remembering_ something about his illness...?

Lance tilted his head back, banging it on purpose on the wall behind him. That cleared his thoughts well enough. He liked his lips, ready to ask a very stupid question about a very damaged heart: “Hey, Keith…” he began. But a sudden explosion swallowed his words.

Keith let the dragon heart fell on the floor, startled, and they both turned towards the noise.

On the other side of the room, two rival gargoyle clans had started fighting each other. Colrin sprang to his feet to protect them from any stray attacks.

“Oh, I had forgotten about that part,” Keith said.

Colrin heard him over the commotion and winked.

“It should be over soon.”

Lance had no reason to think otherwise. Colrin was fantastic, taking advantage of the robots’ weak points and exploiting them at incredible speed. He was in the middle of the fray, and no one seemed to be able to touch him.

That wasn’t the first time Lance found himself wondering if Colrin could make himself intangible, just like Ezor was able to turn invisible if she wanted. But no: he hit too quickly and too hard. He threw his chakrams in the air and caught them again, slashing the creatures who made the mistake of coming too close - or turning their back - to him.

“Amazing,” Lance whispered to himself. Then, louder: “You gotta love the gargoyle stuff!”

Another small explosion.

Keith went back to his knife, still stuck in the wall near Lance’s neck. He reached for the hilt and blocked Lance’s view of Colrin’s with his left arm. Then he used his right hand for leverage, palm flat against the wall on the other side of Lance’s head, and started pulling.

The blade glowed again, and the buzzing feeling returned to Lance’s chest. It stopped at once as Keith yanked the hilt a final time and the dagger gave in.

Lance lost his balance and fell forward, almost crashing against Keith’s chest. “Guess you can go and be king now, uh?” he joked, as he as he checked on his stiff shoulder and neck. “It’s not a bad upgrade from princess.”

Keith sheathed his Excalibur. “Yeah, well… the king orders you to pick up your sword, peasant!” he motioned at Lance’s bayard, still laying forgotten on the floor. “We still have a lot of work to do.”

“Fine,” Lance pouted. _A peasant, him!_ “But, just so you know, I’ve never been a big fan of monarchy.”

Keith shrugged and called for another simulation to begin. “I won’t forget to tell that to Allura.”

_Wait. What?!_

“That’s cheating!” Lance protested.

Keith didn’t bother to retort: he sprang forward, ready to fight a newly-spawned dragon and add another heart to his growing collection.

Lance grunted and chased after him. This time he didn’t activate the mask of his suit. He didn’t need a reminder that his vital signs were all over the place.

 

\---

 

The good news was: Lance came out of the pilot episode of ‘Training with Keith’ alive and well. More or less.

He was breathing heavily and had a couple of cuts that would need attention, but he did keep up with Keith. He also managed to throw him off his game of couple of times while learning a thing or two about his broadsword. Allura was right about the new form of his bayard: if he used it well, it could help him improve his short and middle range attacks a lot.

Most importantly: Lance got back to Keith for that dragon’s heart by stealing another one from under his nose. Which was good. And fun. And a complete waste of time, since Lance cut the heart wrong and it turned into dust right after he got it.

And wasn’t that a nice metaphor for his life right now…?

Anyway! After a while Lance got so into their training that he lost track of time. At some point (let’s call that point ‘the beginning’) he forgot all about his super-secret mission. You know, the one involving finding out more about Keith and Colrin’s relationship. The one that might help Lance save his life, his feelings and his loverboy reputation.

But hey! At least now he knew a lot about Keith’s love for blades. He just needed an excuse to divert the conversation to a different kind of Blade love. (“Hay, Mullet, how do you polish this anyway?” Uhm...)

After a long and well deserved shower, Lance walked out of the Haunted House with skin that smelled like coconut oil and a grumbling stomach.

Colrin joined him a tick later, chewing on some popcorn-like snack he had grabbed somewhere between the sixth and the ground floor. “Do you want some?”

Lance shook his head: “Nah, those are not for me.”

He mulled over his next move.

Keith showed up five minutes later with something that resembled pizza slices and soft drinks. He looked pretty shifty as he handed half of his bounty over to Lance. “A, uhm, gift from the manager,” he said.

Lance took a bite. “A gift?”

Keith shrugged.

Lance munched. “You must have scared that poor guy more than I thought.”

“Whatever,” Keith mumbled around his straw. He made a face and threw his glass in the nearest trash can. Then he walked off at a fast pace, clearly upset.

Lance and Colrin exchanged a puzzled look over their junk food.

“What the quiznak got into him?”

“Don’t look at me,” Colrin said. “I just file it all under ‘Earthlings mood swings’.”

“That filing cabinet must be full by now.”

“It’s gonna burst any second.”

Ah. Right. _Ticking time bomb_. _Don’t set it off._

Lance chugged down the last cheesy bite of his surprise meal. “Keith, wait!” he called after him.

By the time he and Colrin caught up with him, Keith had already reached what Pidge’s pamphlet had called The Main Square. It was a huge, paved space encircled by a line of glowing trees where families ate and played together. There were kiosks selling all kinds of stuff; and here and there, huge hologram screens sprang up to show the visitors what they shouldn’t miss during their stay at the park.

Keith was staring at a map twice his height as the images changed and reformed to highlight all the activities taking place around him. A scuba diving adventure; a hunting trip; a visit to a terrestrial aquarium.

“So… what do you wanna do next?” Lance asked.

He was worried his plan wouldn’t work the way it was supposed to. Now that their training was over, Keith and Colrin could choose to ditch him in favor to be all lovey-dovey in the alien version of Tunnel of Love or something. Lance cringed at the thought; that was the last thing he needed.

“Do you wanna join the others to the Science Fair or…?” He bit his tongue, swearing again at his own idiocy.

Keith, arms crossed and brows furrowed, didn’t look at him. “Do you get a kick out of it when other people make me feel stupid?”

Lance felt faint. “What?! No!”

Where the heck did _that_ even came from?! He looked at Colrin for help, but the Marmorite just looked away, something weird in his eyes.

“Why would I want to make you feel stupid by—”

“No! I meant that…” Keith growled. He actually _growled_ and started messing with his hair, frustrated. He turned towards Lance and took a deep, deep breath: “That’s not what I was trying to say.”

Lance stared at him in silence. He understood about -100% of what Keith was blabbering about. “Okay…. What is that you wanted to say?”

Keith made a disgusted expression, but he tried again. “Science Fairs aren’t exactly my thing,” he explained. “They make me feel all...” he trailed off, making some hand gestures that Lance didn’t get.

“Dazed and confused,” Colrin translated.

“Dazed and confused?” Lance echoed.

Keith bit the inside of his cheek. “Yeah.”

“Oh. I see.” Lance blinked a final time, eyes going wide. That was the most relatable thing ever! “Well, I’m sure you understand more of that sciency-stuff that most people think you do,” Lance said.

Before he got kicked out, Keith _had been_ the golden boy of the Garrison, after all. And while not everyone there was a genius like Pidge or Hunk, all students had to know a lot about how to survive in space. Alone. So… yeah: Keith had to know some crazy science.

“I really don’t,” Keith said.

“Oh, please!” Lance snorted. “You wouldn’t be able to pull off half of those amazing flight maneuvers if you didn’t! Not like I’m complimenting you or anything…” he added quickly.

A huff. “Of course you aren’t.”

“But I get it!” Lance continued, determined to cover his slip-up. “I’m more for the practical side of science myself. And by practical I mean fun. If they had a racing contest or something at the Fair I’d probably be there already.”

“Racing against me?”

Lance looked at Keith, surprised, and Keith gave him a coy smile. “Neck and neck, right?” he asked.

“Right,” Lance confirmed. “That’s the way it is.”

That was a good moment for an awkward silence to take place. So, there it was: silent and awkward. A Moment.

Lance dug his hands deep in his pockets and started looking around, trying to find inspiration for what to say next. Keith seemed to be doing the same, only tormenting his lower lip instead of harassing his jacket. Lance hoped he wasn’t in the habit of doing that, or poor Colrin would taste blood way too often when they kissed. The mere thought made Lance a bit uncomfortable, and—

“So!” Colrin clapped his hands together, requesting attention.

Lance turned his head and found him near a smaller map.

“Since racing is not an option, what’s the plan now? A ride on the Ferris Wheel?”

Lance nodded: “The Ferris Wheel sounds—”

“I was thinking…” Keith interrupted. “What about a trade?”

“A trade?” Lance parroted, a little lost.

Keith showed him one of the parlors highlighted on the first map. “Since you had your sword practice, you could give me some pointers on how to shoot. It’s only fair.”

Lance blinked harder, even more puzzled. “But you already know how to shoot.”

That was a fact, pure and simple. And they all knew it.

Keith stumbled. He looked away. “Yeah, I do…” (he did!) “but you’re a much better shot.”

Okay that… that was a thing that Keith said. Lance was so thunderstruck he couldn’t move. Not even a muscle. Well, maybe that infamous Shiro Eye Twitch. But nothing else.

“Oh.”

Colrin had to elbow him in the ribs to bring him out of his stupor. And even then, Lance was a stuttering mess: “You,” he tried. “Did you.” And then again, after clearing his throat: “You think I’m a good shot?”

“An amazing one,” Keith confirmed. A split of a second later, his expression changed from honest to menacing. “Don’t let it get to your head,” he warned. “I’m just saying that I trust you to watch my back.”

“That’s a good thing, Red. Because he’s already doing a good job there,” Colrin said.

Keith scratched his neck, his nape red with distress.

Lance opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, no sound coming out. Maybe that was a first, but he was truly and honestly speechless.

Colrin laughed: the affectionate kind of laughter that you want your friends to laugh all the time. “What are you gonna say, sharpshooter?” he wrapped Lance in a boisterous half-hug. “You’re gonna teach our boy how to use those guns?”

What Lance let out what was barely a strangled whisper. “Yes.”

At Keith’s befuddlement, he shook his head, puffed his chest out and put his hands on his hips. “I’ll show you how it’s done, my young Padawan!” he announced, proud.

Keith grimaced. “I’m already regretting this.”

“Nope! No take backs!”

“Let’s go then, _Master_.”

Lance was so pleased with the recent development, he let the sarcasm slide.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance gets a gift.

Pidge and Hunk were at Lance’s feet. Two Pidges and three Hunks, actually: bright-colored plushies with clumsy feet and foamy hands. Allura and Shiro’s action figures didn’t look any better, both with ridiculous plastic hair and misshapen limbs.

At least the merchandising people got Coran all figured out: his orange mustaches had inspired the most comfortable pillow Lance had ever touched.

Hidden somewhere in their trophy pile there was also a Blue Paladin keychain that Keith got by mistake when his rifle backfired. The little figure didn’t look like Lance at all: too tall, too knotty, and… well, too white.

“This is outrageous,” Lance said, glaring at his other self. “I should have a talk with the marketing people and set them straight.”

“I thought Coran was the marketing people,” Keith reloaded his rifle. Unlike the weapons in the Haunted House, the ones at the shooting gallery were toys, but Lance was impressed by how well balanced they were.

“Nah, Coran had to give up the position. It was becoming too stressful and Allura was afraid he would end up using one of those slug-things again.” Lance threw the keychain back in the pile. “I don’t like the new marketing guys. Did you know that they tried to convince Shiro to do a sexy photoshoot?”

Keith obviously hadn’t. His next shot made a nice, round hole in the booth’s ceiling. Lance could see the sky peeking from there.

“What?!”

“Yeah! They said we had to give him the spotlight because ‘he’s our most popular character’,” Lance kept his airquote game strong. “So they wanted him to pose for a beefy calendar.”

Keith’s brain came back online. “That is ridiculous,” he said, outraged.

“I know! Obviously _I’m_ our most popular character!” Lance flexed his biceps like that time he’d been showing off for Nyma.

Keith wasn’t more affected by his display of manliness that she had been. “I thought that was Other Keith.” He tilted his thumb towards the end of the shooting gallery, where a gazillion Allura plushies were lined up on the shelves, taking up half the space on their own.

Lance pouted. “Well, that’s the Altean Princess Brand for you: can’t compete against her ten thousand years of good publicity.” A sudden thought hit him: “Maybe I could sue her for unfair competition.” And maybe even for lost profits, and unapproved use of his image and—“Why are you doing that?”

Keith was biting the inside of his cheek, shaking with laughter. When Lance stopped ranting to stare at him, he didn’t care hiding his amusement anymore.

“Oh, nothing,” Keith said. “It’s just that now when I tell Allura about your distaste for monarchy, I can add in the fact that you think she’s _old_.”

“She _is_ old,” Lance replied without thinking.

Keith’s eyes widened.

Cue the beginning of a Hunk-level panic episode.

“I mean _chronologically_!” Lance tried to save himself. “Technically if you do the math she’s a bit... vintage? Like her wardrobe! Fashionable but not really in style, same as those moldy dresses my mother likes to wear. They’re nice, comfy, but then you notice the wrinkles around her eyes and realize: ‘Oh, this might be a little older than I thought’. Not like Allura’s got any wrinkles, apart from that line around her eyes that comes out when—uh.”

Lance really dug his own grave here, didn’t he?

“A little wrinkle,” Keith said in a hollow huff.

Lance swallowed. “Please don’t tell her I said any of that,” he squeaked.

“Who’s ‘her’? Your mother or Allura?”

“Uh… both?” Lance whimpered. He was dead. So dead: forget the Juniberry Curse; ranting would be his downfall!

Keith aimed his rifle and fired: “Don’t worry, I’m not saying anything. But maybe keep this, just in case you need to win their love back.” He handed over the Lotor plushie he just shot between the eyes. Twice.

Lance grimaced for many different reasons. His life would have been easier if his crush on Allura had blossomed into something more. But nope: he had to fall in love with someone without even knowing who that was.

Sometimes he felt like punching himself in the face.

“You’re a horrible person,” he told Keith instead.

“But not a horrible shot,” Keith said.

Lance stared at the huge forehead of plushie!Lotor for a good thirty ticks. “That’s because this shooting gallery isn’t good enough for us.”

“Uh?”

“Who wouldn’t shoot Lotor in the head? Winning is too easy this way! We need an incentive”. Lance looked around the alley, where other booths were trying to draw in visitors by promising all kinds of prizes: food, clothes, keychains… even pets.

“What about this one?” Colrin called them.

He was standing in front of the shooting gallery on the other side of the street with a backpack full of animal plushies. An angry cat and a sleepy-looking hippo peeked out from its side pockets.

“Perfect!” Lance said. “Let’s go shoot the nice forest creatures!”

He picked up their Paladin bounty and seized Keith’s waist, dragging him towards their new destination.

“Those are not forest creatures,” Keith said, perusing the shelves.

Lance waved him off. While Colrin was busy kissing Keith’s cheek, he bought them a few more tickets from the shooting gallery lady: a small, yellow alien with a spherical body no taller than Lance’s open palm.

This time, though, Lance chose a different kind of weapon to practice: a heavy gun, similar to the blaster his blue bayard used to turn into.

“This isn’t very good for sniper work,” Keith pointed out.

Lance dug his hands in his back pockets. “Nope!” he confirmed, rocking back and forth on his heels. “Welcome to training level number two, Mullet!”

This shooting gallery was much more interesting than the first one they tried. Instead of having the prizes lined up in the back shelves, here there were no shelves at all.

Several wooden platforms moved around the booth, following patterns that brought them closer or farther from the shooters at various angles and speeds. The actual prizes were hidden from view most of the time, buried inside brightly colored boxes.

Lance was sure he could have cleared the stage in record time; but Keith was another story. This game required skills, but also a lot of patience.

Keith’s eyes kept following the moving panels, trying to identify a pattern that Lance already knew he wouldn’t find. Colrin watched him with a fond smile as he relaxed his shoulders and adjusted his grip on the blaster.

“You’re making me nervous, staring like that,” Keith told his boyfriend.

Lance pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek and looked away, taken aback by that display of nervousness. He was so distracted by that, he almost didn’t notice the metallic taste at the back of his throat.

Keith snarled in frustration and took a step back, fingers unable to find their proper place around the blaster.

The yellow lady came to the rescue. She rolled along the counter and pushed a glass of water in Keith’s direction with her three small hands. “Don’t be so tense, honey, or you won’t get your prize.”

As Keith bristled and Lance tried his best not to feel like a third wheel, Colrin conceded defeat. “I’ll leave you to your training.”

As usual, the Blade seemed more amused than annoyed by Keith’s ‘Earthen mood swings’. Lance figured that by now he had to find them endearing.

Colrin tightened the straps of his backpack. “I’ll be at the food parlor at the end of the alley,” he informed them. “Find me when you’re done here.”

Keith apparently decided he was too upset to dignify that with an answer. He kept staring at his toy blaster, trying to get familiar with the feeling of the weapon in his hands.

Lance took over the Politeness Department. “Okay.”

He followed Colrin with his eyes as the Blade moved past Keith and started jogging towards the food parlor.

“Later!” Colrin called back. His plushie collection bounced up and down until he disappeared from view.

Distraction gone, Keith focused on his next target: a middle-sized box, currently located on a panel in the upper left corner of the booth.

Lance had to give it to him: it wasn’t a bad choice. The box wasn’t moving too fast, and it was easy to follow thanks to its opaque colors.

Keith took a deep breath. His finger started closing around the trigger.

For some reason, that’s when it hit Lance: how different Keith acted, with Colrin around. In the space of a few ticks, he could become a whole different person. Sweet one second; sour the next. But what really triggered that change? Something he felt or something that wasn’t there anymore...?

Lance had to wonder; and, by wondering, he stirred something inside himself.

Keith exhaled.

_In some ways_ , Lance thought, _everything comes down to breathing._

It was a perfect shot.

The box opened to reveal its prize just as Lance brought his hands to his neck. There were razor blades in there, scratching and biting, spreading a terrible warmth in his throat. Lance swore, bending down and coughing until his legs somehow brought him to the side of the booth.

He heard a soft rustle as Keith followed close.

“You okay?”

Lance managed to get his head up. “I’m fine,” he lied. “I shouldn’t have chugged down that pizza stuff so quickly before.”

Behind him, Keith hesitated. Lance took the chance to look down at his left palm, where a couple of petals now lay within the tiniest drop of blood. When he looked away, trying to escape them, his eyes found the food parlor at the end of the street. Colrin was looking at him from behind the glass doors of the store, something like worry in his eyes.

Lance pretended not to notice.

A tick Later, Keith’s hand was on his shoulder. Not pulling; not pushing; just resting there.

Lance hurried to clear away the petals in his jeans and raised to his full height: “I’m okay.”

It was less of a lie the second time. His head felt much better now, and the burning in his lungs had faded along the rusty taste in his mouth. He shooed Keith back to the shooting gallery, telling him not to slack off and go back to his training.

Keith answered with a low grumble. Lance kept pushing at his back. When they reached their destination, there was a second glass of water resting on the counter.

The alien lady smiled at Lance, who took a sip in gratitude.

Legs, back, shoulders, neck: Keith got ready to shoot again. Lance checked his stance, giving pointers when needed. Not too often, he told Keith to relax his grip; flex his knees; try and be more patient.

Keith listened when he wanted to; and he puffed and whiffed when he thought Lance was being too Lance-y and started getting on his nerves. After a while, he settled on a new target. His feet betrayed anxiety as they shuffled on the ground.

It was right then that Lance saw an opening. He waited until Keith’s arms relaxed and his finger was resting on the trigger. Then he leaned against the counter, propped up on his elbow, and gave Keith a treacherous smile: “So, how’s your love life going?”

The shot hit a revolving panel, bounced off a metallic plate, and somehow managed to behead the stuffed mermaid laying innocently at the far end of the booth.

Keith, plastered on the counter, turned to Lance with a feral growl. “You did that on purpose!”

Lance feigned innocence: “Who, me?”

He watched in amusement as the yellow lady pressed a button on the wall and the poor mermaid got added to the list of Keith’s prizes: human legs and torso on the right, fish head on the left.

“Please don’t destroy my booth,” she sighed.

Keith fumed at Lance.

Lance shrugged at Keith. “It’s not my fault your shooting skills aren’t as good as mine.”

He took the last sip of his water and picked up his forgotten blaster. He felt something pull at his lungs: a strain that had never been there before.

He needed to make sure he was okay.

“It all comes down to breathing,” he whispered, more for his benefit than Keith’s.

He waited until he became one with his target. And then again, until the fear left him, chased away by a quiet serenity.

Mind clear, Lance took the shot; several of them, in fact. He pulled the trigger five times, hitting all his targets in quick succession.

A bell rang out.

“You can pick out one of our special prizes,” the nice lady said.

She presented him a criminally cute collection of stuffed animals. Among the options: an alien-looking fox with nine tails, a vampire squirrel, what looked like a Bii-Boh-Bi stuffed with cherry marmalade, and—

“Doesn’t this look like one of those flying sharks you were ranting about?”

Lance snapped out of his reverie. “Uh?”

Keith picked up a big plushie from the bottom of the Special Prizes Box and showed it to him. And surely enough, it was the replica of one of those awesome space tiger sharks! It was a dark shade of magenta, with black fins and a row of nasty-looking teeth; cloud-shaped wings sprouted just below where the gills should have been.

Lance got stars in his eyes. “Awesome!”

“Are you planning on seeing the Flying Sharks show?” the yellow lady asked.

Lance nodded with the fervor of a five year old. “I am!”

Keith started sorting through their growing collection of stuffed animals, a disapproving curve on his lips. Whatever, Lance was allowed to be childish about some things. And sharks were awesome, after all!

The yellow lady nodded. “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for that. They never held the show on the days the shields get lowered.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that. But I was actually planning to go on my next to last day here.”

Keith looked up at that. “Why then?”

Lance feigned nonchalance. “Oh, you know… to end our visit here with a bang.”

That had been his original plan. Now, he simply wanted something to distract him from the whole Juniberry situation.

Keith lost interest in the Special Prizes Box. “We should eat something,” he said, looking around for Colrin.

Lance agreed. He had no idea what time it was, but he was pretty sure dinnertime was right around the corner. He could have done with a tasty snack. “Yeah, just a sec. Can I have an extra bag for my special prize?” he addressed the yellow lady.

She smiled down at the small mountain of plushies, keychains and pillows Lance and Keith had brought with them. “I’ll get you a couple. Wait here.” She jumped off the counter and disappeared somewhere in the depths of her booth.

“I’m gonna go ahead while you finish here,” Keith said, waving in the direction of the food parlor where Colrin was.

Lance nodded absently: “Sure. Leave our army of plushies to me.”

As Keith walked away, he scooped up a runaway Pidge from the ground. Even in this form, the little gremlin seemed up to no good.

When the yellow lady came back, Lance took his Special Prize out of the box and put it away in one of the shiny bags she gave him. That’s when he noticed the tickets to the Flying Shark show waiting for him on the counter.

“Your shows are fun,” the lady said. “But I like this version of you far better than Loverboy Lance.”

Lance was sure he blushed up to his ears - even if he wasn’t really sure what she meant by that.

 

\---

 

Hunk was eating by myself at a small table when Lance jogged into the food parlor, three bags full of toys (and free tickets!) jiggling in his hands.

Keith and Colrin were standing by the counter on the other side of the room, sharing a cup of ice-cream near the dessert cart. Their brows were furrowed, like they just both got a brain freeze. Or maybe they were thinking about serving that at their wedding. Who knew?

Lance put his bags down with a theatrical sigh and sat on the empty chair across Hunk. “Did you ditch the Horrible Holts?”

“They’re in line for some space fries,” Hunk said. He had already gotten some of his own, and was dipping them in some weird sauce that smelled like carrots. “They've got a buttery aftertaste. You should try them as well.”

“Uhm…” Lance browsed the menu, but nothing really seemed to catch his attention. He could have gone for a cheese ice-cream, but the shop where he got it last time wasn’t there anymore: the yellow lady and her shooting gallery had taken its place. Lance had figured it out as he left. _What a bummer._

“How was the Science Fair?”

Hunk burped. “Brilliant! I came up with a couple of ideas I want to pitch to Coran, actually.”

“About what?”

“Oh: healing technology, mostly.”

Lance’s body went rigid. He peeked at Hunk from above his menu, hands holding the pamphlet a little too tight: “Healing pods, you mean?” He hoped that was just a coincidence and Hunk wasn’t onto something. “Aren’t we good on that front…?”

Hunk nodded. “That’s what Pidge said—”

_God bless the little gremlin_.

“—but I think that by studying the technology that runs the barrier here at the Station we could really improve healing pods’ energy usage.”

“They worked fine for ten thousand years! What’s there to improve?”

“There’s _always_ room for improvement,” Hunk proclaimed.

Lance let the menu go. “So, you already got a plan?”

“The info on the memory stick the Rebels gave us could help a lot. Should I get into technobabble?”

“Please do.” Lance could use the distraction. “I’ll smile and nod for show.”

Hunk proceeded to technobabble at his heart’s content. Lance understood about 20% of what he was saying, but his fascination was not fake. Hunk’s excitement for new stuff had always been contagious - and one of the few reasons Lance managed to stay awake through their engineering's classes back at the Garrison. It was a bit like listening to a foreign song.

“...and did you have fun with Keith?”

Lance blinked. “Uh? Sorry, I kinda lost you at the ‘reverse the polarity’ of something.”

“Yeah. I could tell,” Hunk threw a burnt fry at him. “Your training with Keith. Did it go well?”

Lance shrugged. “My arms feel like they’re about to fall off, but I held my own.”

“Good job, Lance!”

Finger guns. “I’m a veritable swordmaster.”

“A master of none,” Pidge said.

Lance helped her push a small table close to Hunk’s before swatting her on the forehead with his menu.

“Please don’t annoy my little sister,” Matt put a tray full of space chips down on their table. “She will kill you in retaliation.” He handed everyone a space hamburger.

Lance didn’t really know what that stuff was made of, but it looked… well, pink. Not ‘raw meat’ pink; more like that Barbie color that he usually associated with kids’ toys, plastic and bubblegum. He sniffed at it.

“It’s vegetarian,” Matt said, unimpressed.

“Oh, thank quiznak!” Lance started chewing on it like a man starved. It tasted a bit like elderberry syrup. “I’ve had problems with meat since Kaltenecker.”

“Same,” Hunk and Pidge chorused.

“Also with fish,” he reflected. Since his close encounter with that mermaid-eating creature on the ice planet, his diet hadn’t been the same. That thing even put him off salad for a while! “Maybe I should just stick to food goo,” he mused, taking another bite at his burger.

Hunk stole some sauce from Pidge’s plate. “I’m putting together quite a cookbook for that.”

“My hero,” Lance said.

“Any changes you can recreate something similar to black cherry ice cream?” Keith asked. He and Colrin joined them, a cone of ice creams each.

“That’s very specific,” Hunk said.

Keith shrugged: “My mom tried it when she was on Earth. She loved it.”  The rainbow sprinkles that decorated his cone stuck to his lips. Keith grimaced and licked them away. “Apparently nothing tastes like black cherries in space.”

Colrin licked the top of his own cone: a creamy goodness with marshmallow-like decorations that looked like a 20 thousand calories bomb. “These toppers looked like they could do the job, but Keith doesn’t like them too much.”

Lance’s stomach grumbled. He got to his feet at once: “I wanna try some!”

He walked over to the dessert cart, browsing it with the fascination of a five year old while he waited for an attendant.

Someone stepped to his side.

“Hey,” Pidge said. “How are you feeling?”

Lance shrugged. “Still breathing,” he said.

He should have been the one to ask that question, actually. Pidge had dark circles around her eyes, and the fact that she wasn’t bouncing around like usual had him wonder if she had slept at all in the last two days.

Tired or not, her brain seemed to be one-track minded. “Did you find out anything useful?”

Lance’s initial reaction was to tell her that no, his plan had failed. But, somehow, he felt that wasn’t true. He _did_ understand something more about Keith and Colrin’s relationship than he did before. For example, now he knew that they each had their own space; that they gave each other room to breathe; and that silence didn’t scare them.

Lance had always been scared of silence. He wasn’t used to it - how could he, growing up in his noisy house with all his brothers and sister? - so he always tried to fill it up with something. His own pointless words, mostly.

It had been a weird experience, finding out that silence could be precious as well.

“Yeah,” he finally said. “I did.”

Pidge didn’t push for more; but he did. “Hacked anything interesting today?”

She adjusted her glasses. “Matt and I joined a hackathon. There’s a couple of hospital files that I managed to access during the contest that look pretty weird.”

“What kind of weird?”

“The suspicious kind,” she said. “I’ll tell you more tomorrow. I still need to crack a couple of codes first.”

Lance restrained himself from whistling. If the Holts hadn’t managed to access that data yet, the security on the Station must have been tighter than he thought. But why hide Keith’s hospital records so well? No-one would have even known they existed in the first place.

“Which flavors do you want?”

“That green one for me!” Pidge jumped up, going for a minty frozen yoghurt.

Lance smiled at the server. “Can I have one of those?” he pointed to the wall, where the cutout of the chocolatey-looking ice-cream that Colrin had been eating was on display. That thing looked delicious!

The server tilted his lips downwards. “I’m sorry, we’re out of those.”

Lance sighed, settling for a blue and white cone that tasted like coconut and lemon instead. The thing wasn’t half bad. Still, Lance pouted; he had really wanted to try what Colrin had.

 

\---

 

“Do you want Allura or Shiro?”

“Both.”

“Really?”

“I shot them through the heart,” Lance said. “I won them fair and square.”

“He did, Red.” Colrin backed him up.

“Plus,” Lance continued, “I’m letting you keep the mustache pillow!”

Keith glowered. “You’re so generous.”

“Fine,” Lance bargained. “You can have another Shiro for your collection.” He added their mighty leader’s action figure to the ‘Keith’ pile of toys on the bed.

They were back in Keith and Colrin’s room after their dinner with their friends, splitting their bounty of the day. Previous to that evening, Lance had no idea Keith could get so attached to plushies. #TheMoreYouKnow, he told himself, kicking one last Lotor plushie under the bed.

“I think we’re done then?”

Keith shrugged. “Yeah. I think so.”

Colrin put his hands on his hips, staring at them in turn. “You two make quite a good team when you put your minds to it.”

Lance bit down his lips, hiding a laughter.

“What is it?” Keith said.

“Nothing,” Lance said. “It’s just… if you had asked Garrison me if he could ever team up with you—”

“‘Garrison me’? That’s still you, Lance.”

“A younger me.”

“A youthful and naive creature,” Colrin joined in.

Lance laughed again and Keith shook his head, eyes to the ceiling. “So… do you wanna do this again, sometime?”

“Oh, sure!” Lance said. “We should keep training like this.”

He felt like he actually improved his sword fighting skills that day. Plus, he’d have a good excuse to find out more about Keith and Colrin that way. He had come up with several questions he wanted to ask them, but he would need an excuse to act on his plan.

Keith kept staring at the ceiling. “Yeah…” he mumbled. “Tomorrow morning then?”

“Tomorrow morning is… ah, no,” Lance backtracked. “I promised Pidge I’d help her out with a thing first.” She’d skin him alive if he bailed on her; and Matt would probably help her this time.

“Oh,” Keith finally looked down, scratching his arm. If Lance hadn’t known any better, he’d have said the guy was sad.

“I’m free in the afternoon, we could… visit the House of Mirrors, or something?” Lance trailed off, giving Colrin a questioning look over Keith’s shoulder. The Blade shrugged in a ‘not up to me’ way and went back playing with his chakrams.

Keith seemed to hesitate for a second.

Lance suddenly remembered his bathroom conversation with Matt about how Keith almost sacrificed himself on Naxzela. Maybe dragging the Mullet a house that could literally show him his biggest fears wasn’t the best idea ever.

He was about to take his offer back when Keith surprised him again: “That sounds cool.”

Lance smiled. “It’s a date then!”

The metallic sound of the chakrams stopped. Lance glanced to the side to see Colrin raise an eyebrow at him. He felt a lump in his throat.

“Not like a _date_ date,” he added quickly, looking at Keith again. “What I meant… It’s not like… well, you know what I meant!”

Keith chortled.

It was the weirdest sound Lance had ever heard in his life.

“I know what you meant.”

The chakrams got in the air again.

“Anyway, I should probably go now.” Lance picked up his bag of toys, stuffing the tickets to the Flying Sharks Show under the glasses of a Pidge plushie.

“Oh, before I forget…” he took the special prize he had chosen and handed it to Keith. “You can have this.”

Keith startled. “...I thought you had taken the shark.”

Lance shrugged. “Nah, I can buy one when I go to the show. I know you probably have one of these already…” that was a lie. He _knew_ that for a fact. “But I wanted to say thank you for the sword advice, I guess.”

Keith stared at his giant hippo plushie, still unsure what to do. His hands stayed still for one last second before finally closing around its round body. It was a weird sight; almost… endearing.

From the fond way Colrin was looking at Keith, he knew the Blade thought the same.

Lance felt something move inside his chest. He needed to get out of there, fast; before another episode of The Awkward (™) began.

“Well, I’m going then!” he declared. “See you at breakfast!”

“Wait… Lance!” Keith called; but Lance was already gone, not interested in another front row seat at Blades PDAs today. He was already halfway to his and Hunk’s room when he heard the door behind him open again, followed by hurried footsteps.

Keith rushed towards him, red on the cheeks thanks to his sprint down the hall. He halted just before Lance and shoved a small, white cardboard box to his chest. “I meant to give this to you earlier,” he heaved. “It’s _my_ thank you.”

Lance took the gift with a puzzled expression. “Oh. Uhm, thank you too?” he tried.

Keith nodded, never raising his eyes from the floor. Then, before Lance could do or say anything else, he muttered a rushed ‘goodnight’ and ran back to his room.

Lance opened the box. Inside, there was the golden heart of the dragon Keith had killed that morning.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance is lost. Keith gets a little purple. The Holts figure something out.

Here’s a fun story. Once upon a time at the Garrison, Hunk got sick.

No, wait: that’s not the fun part of the story.

Better start again.

Okay. Here it is.

Lance’s Abuela wasn’t the only person who tried smuggling something into the Garrison. There were dozens of cadets (and officials) who regularly brought in all illegal kind of stuff: food, clothes, eyedrops… even old vintage audio CDS.

One memorable time, Lance had to stay up all night and hold Hunk’s head back as his friend swore to ‘never, ever again’ eat strawberry cake laced with rum. Céline Dion played in the background. For such a big guy, Hunk had little tolerance for alcohol (and a depressing taste in music).

Anyway. That wasn’t the fun part of the story either.

The fun part came years later from that day, on Galaxy Station 87, in the bathroom of their shared hotel room. Lance was on his knees, bent over the toilet, as he tried not to wake Hunk while he puked his soul out. Or better said: while he puked his _lungs_ out.

Early that morning, the flowers had come. Not the stray petals that sometimes made their way up to Lance’s throat, but a flurry of them: pastel pink and magenta, with stains of red and the salty aftertaste of his own tears.

Lance’s head came up as he tried to catch his breath. The flowers’ sharp edges cut inside his mouth and grazed his lips, leaving them sore and burning. He was glad Juniberries had smooth stems instead of thorns.

“Lance?” A knock at the door. “Are you done in there?”

His back to the wall, Lance stared, eyes unfocused, as the door handle slid down and then back up with a loud click. He heard Hunk made a perplexed sound from their bedroom. The door rattled again.

“Almost,” Lance squeaked.

“I’m almost done,” he tried a second time. “Gimme a few more minutes. I’m in the middle of my beauty routine.”

“I really have to pee!”

“I can’t take this mask off right now.”

“Oh, _man_. It’s that ocean breeze one, right? I hate that thing!”

Hook, line and sinker. Lance almost forgot the burning in his chest. “Sorry buddy,” the regret in his voice wasn’t fake. “It makes my skin feel fantastic.”

“I know, but can’t you let me in anyway? I promise I won’t look if you don’t!”

“What?” The horror wasn’t fake either. “I’m not letting you pee while I’m in here!”

As much as he loved the guy, there was no way that would happen under any circumstances. “Go ask Pidge!”

Lance imagined, more than saw, Hunk squinting at him. “Why would I ask _Pidge_?”

_Oh, for quiznak’s sake!_

“Then try Keith.” Lance banged his head against the wall, muttering something about pidgeon’s hair nests, out-of-style mullets, and complete disregards for skincare. Seriously, he hated how good his friends looked without even having to make an effort. Especially when—

“Lance? Lance, are you alright in there?”

He must have dozed off at some point, because Hunk’s voice sounded weird and muffled to his ears. “Yeah!” he coughed, and three more petals fell into his open palm. “I’m fine,” he lied.

“Were you talking to yourself again?”

“What?” he tried to buy some more time, as he got back to his feet.

“Nevermind. What’s the ETA for that mask?”

Lance flushed the toilet, braced himself on the sink, and stared at the mirror: glassy eyes, flushed cheeks, and hair sticking to his forehead. With a bit of luck, maybe he could pull this off. He washed his face.

“I’m coming out,” he said, taking a sip of water from his glass. (No way in hell he was drinking that vanilla-scented monstrosity from the faucet!)

The liquid didn’t burn like he had expected to. It felt like the worst had passed, and relief spread to Lance’s chest. He wouldn’t die today.

_A month since the petals first appear_ , Layra had said. “A month,” Lance told his reflection.

He opened the door. Hunk was standing there, legs crossed and hands over his crotch. He took a quick peek at Lance’s face, nodded his thanks, and hurried inside the bathroom.

Lance’s hearing was unfortunately good enough to let him catch the relieved sound that followed. He half-grimaced, half-laughed, and got rid of his pajamas. Once he slipped in some fresh clothes, he sat on his bed. The dragon heart was waiting for him on the bedside table. Lance picked it up, light and shiny in his hands.

“Does being in love feel like that?” he wondered.

For him, it had always been about random flutters of joy: a somersault, the flash of a flirty smirk, and the rush of blood to his cheeks (and… other places). And then came That Smile, and with it the pain of pretty girl telling him that he wasn’t her type; that she wasn’t that into him; that ‘maybe…’: maybe if he were less of a joker, a bit less himself, things would have been different.

“Maybe they were right,” he whispered to his heart.

Perhaps the trick was letting go of something to get something else in return. Keith had let go of a lot of anger since he had found Krolia. And now he smiled softer smiles, whenever he was around Colrin.

That lightness felt contagious. “I wish.” Lance hummed. “I wish…”

“Oh, man: I feel so much better now!”

Lance almost dropped his heart. “Quiznak!” he swore. “You scared me!”

Hunk’s eyebrows did a complicated dance that could have meant anything. He puffed his cheeks out, bit the inside of one, and pursed his lips: “Sorry,” he finally settled for his puppy eyes look. “Can we go to breakfast now? I’m starving!”

“Yeah, yeah…” Lance made sure he had his bayard on him before following Hunk out of the room. “You’re always starving!”

“Yes. But I’m extra ravenous today, and it’s kinda your fault, dude.”

“My fault, really?”

“Yeah. It’s the smell of that shampoo you used. Or was it a new mask?”

What are you talking about?” Lance hadn’t used anything but toothpaste that morning. And a lot of it.

“I don’t know,” Hunk said. “Something that smelled like cherries? Or… some kind of fruit?”

“Oh.” _Shit_.

“It definitely wasn’t ocean breeze! It made me long for a slice of pie! Do you think they have some? I hope they have some.”

Hunk kept on chattering about desserts. Behind him, Lance closed his eyes and imagined weeding out the flowers from his lungs petal after petal, until nothing was left.

 

\---

 

Breakfast was hell. Not actual _hell_ , more like a nightmarish version of an uncomfortable family dinner gone wrong. So worse than actual hell.

And maybe Lance was imagining things because of his inner freak out (and, you know, the capital letter Pain in his lips, mouth and throat), but something was definitely up.

The others were already there when he and Hunk arrived. Lance headed to make a toast at the standing buffet near their table, while Hunk took his usual spot on Keith’s right, saying something about how he hoped their ‘gun and sword training’ was going well.

Keith absently scratched his left arm. “Yeah, it is,” he gave Lance a look as if to seek for some kind of confirmation.

Lance nodded without really paying attention. His knife was shaking slightly in his grip, as he tried spreading some marmalade-cream-goo on his bread. He put it down with an angry thud. Keith, Hunk and the Holts all turned to stare at him. “Butterfingers.”

Luckily, Colrin showed up right then with a steaming cup of not-coffee in his hands. He waved everyone good morning through half-lidded eyes and sat on the empty chair on Keith’s left.

That gave Lance the chance to clear his head. Knife accident forgotten, he got and extra chair from a nearby table, placed it between Hunk and Matt, and started chewing on his toast. Every bite burned.

That’s about when everyone started getting shifty.

Well, not everyone. Just Keith... and Colrin, a little while later. And then the Holts, who kept tapping their fingers on the table and their feet on the floor with growing intensity.

Lance mulled it over.

Maybe Keith and Colrin had a fight over who should keep all those cute Shiro’s plushies. And about the Holts… Pidge and Matt probably couldn’t wait to go and hack some more super security systems. So yeah, all he had to do was nibble at his toast until the whole mess was over.

All in all, it all worked pretty well: Lance nibbled, Hunk chewed, and time passed. At least until Keith asked Hunk to pass him the maybe-sugar.

“Uhm…” Hunk looked up from his slice of cake (not cherry, not fruit, but a sour looking lemony thing), frowned, and made a confused sound. ‘Cause the maybe-sugar was right in front of Lance. “Uhm…” Hunk said again.

Not daring to ask what the quiznak was going on with everyone that morning, Lance pushed the sugar bowl in front of Keith’s plate, opposite of him at their small table. “Here you go, Mullet.”

Keith turned his head in the general direction of Colrin’s shoulder: “Thanks”. His voice was  so quiet that Lance almost didn’t hear him.

“Think nothing of it,” he said.

Keith clenched his fingers and hid his hands under the tablecloth.

Lance looked at Colrin’s for help, but the Marmorite could only reply with a shrug before looking for Keith’s hand under the table and squeezing it in a reassuring way.

At his point, Lance was officially lost. Keith had no reason to be _pissed_ at him. At all. But he looked annoyed - maybe even disappointed -  and that didn’t make any sense. And you know what? Lance didn’t have the energy to deal with that.

He went back to his toast. He munched on his thoughts and stared at the Mullet, daring him to spit out what was wrong.

Cue Matt letting out a disapproving noise. Lance knew that sound: it was the same guttural groan that his mother made when he and his siblings told each other words they’d later regret. It was her ‘Oh no: you can’t be this thoughtless!’ admonition.

Lance didn’t like it one bit - and, apparently, neither did Pidge. Without warning, she stomped on Matt’s feet, making him yelp in pain. “Stop it!” she not-so-quietly whispered. Matt glared at her.

“Okay,” Hunk held his hands up. “What’s going on here?”

“Nothing,” the Holts answered at the same time, not breaking eye contact with each other.

Hunk blinked. And blinked. And blinked some more. “Okay,” he drawled the word out. He slid his chair closer to Lance, hand half-covering his mouth: “I think they’re hiding something.”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I got that.”

“I’m going back to the hospital,” Matt suddenly said, pushing his chair back.

Pidge gave him a dirty glare.

Lance hoped he looked calmer than he felt: “What? Why?”

“I just want to make extra sure I’m fine,” Matt said. “After that concussion.”

Pidge hesitated for a second. “Do you want me to go with you?”

“No, I know you and Lance have plans.”

The way Matt said that last world made Lance a bit uncomfortable. It also made him realize that the Holts had been fighting again, most definitely because of him.

He tried to say something, but Keith got there first. “I’m going with you,” he said.

Everybody turned to stare at him in confusion. Keith got up and sighed. “I need to have my arm checked out,” he rolled up his left sleeve. And, sure enough, there was a big, purple patch of skin there.

Lance felt his stomach drop. “Is that from training?!”

Keith’s sleeve went down again. “No.”

“Are you Galra-ing out?” Hunk asked, worried.

“I’m... not sure.” Keith looked at Lance for a second, and then away again. “It’s been going on for a while.”

That answer brought Lance and the Holts back on the same page. Fast.

“Really?” Pidge adjusted her glasses. “How long exactly...?”

“A while,” Keith said again.

“You should have said something.” Lance spoke before he realized what he was doing.

Keith looked taken aback. “I am.”

“But you—”

“You’re not helping, Lance,” Colrin said. He got up as well, resting a protective hand on Keith’s shoulders.

Lance hung his head: “No, you’re right. Sorry.” He picked at what remained of his toast.

When he raised his eyes again, he noticed Hunk and Pidge exchanging a weird look with Keith.

Matt cleared his throat. “Well, let’s go then.”

“Yeah. I’ll see you later then?” Keith turned one last time to Lance.

Lance nodded. “Of course.”

“I’m going too,” Hunk said.

“Where?”

“Back to the Science Fair. I want to work some more on my project so I can pitch my idea to Coran and Allura when we get back to the Castle. Plus,” he gave both Lance and Pidge a glance, “I need something to do while you two have your ‘secret meeting’.”

He looked a bit miffed, not knowing what was really going on, but he was Hunk: and Hunk never let anything ruin his good mood for long. Unlike someone else.

As soon as he and Pidge were alone, Lance switched gears. He cleared the table and basically dragged her in the Holts’ room. His mission: whine ‘till the end of the universe. Or until Pidge got fed up and electrocuted him with her bayard. Whichever came first.

 

\---

 

“I can’t do this anymore,” Lance faceplanted into the nearest bed with a dramatic flair his Abuela would have been proud of.

Pidge closed the door with an annoyed huff. “Sure you can,” she said. “Whatever that is.”

Lance turned to face her. He raised his right hand, thumb and index finger almost touching. “I’m _this_ close to telling Hunk everything.”

“Then tell him everything.”

“I don’t want to!”

“You just said—”

“I know what I just said!” Lance insisted. He hugged a pillow. “I just feel bad about it.”

Pidge sighed again. “Well, that makes two of us.”

She sat down beside him, and Lance decided to reset the conversation.

“What’s the deal with Matt, anyway?” he asked. “You guys fought about me again, didn’t you?”

Pidge took off her glasses, something she did only when she was at the end of her rope. “Don’t worry about it,” she tried to play it down. “It’s just…”

Lance waited.

She took her time. “Matt’s worried.”

“Yeah, well. He doesn’t need to be,” Lance lied. He was doing that a lot that morning, but he didn’t want to tell Pidge about his little puking incident. That would have made things way worse, and he needed time to figure more stuff out about Keith and Colrin.

Apparently, though, he and Pidge got their wires crossed. She put her glasses back on. “Not about you,” she clarified. “He’s worried about Keith.”

Lance raised an eyebrow. “What? Why?”

Pidge looked like she really didn’t want to answer his question. But he kept staring, and in the end she gave in. “He thinks you’re playing with his feelings.”

“Playing with his what?!” Lance got on his feet. “That’s ludicrous!”

If anything, he was trying to help Keith out, making sure his relationship with Colrin wasn’t based on an illusion! And while Lance might have started out doing so for very selfish reasons… well, in the end he thought he was doing a good deed. A really good one.

“I care about Keith’s feelings!”

Pidge stared at him, mouth agape. Maybe she was surprised he knew how to use the word ‘ludicrous’ correctly. Or maybe she had no idea how serious Matt was with that ‘Keith is a time bomb’ theory. Lance wished _he_ didn’t.

“Anyway,” he said, “what did you find out?”

Pidge looked at loss for a second. Then her systems came back online. “Right,” she hurried to open her laptop. “Remember those encrypted files I told you about yesterday?”

“Yeah those ‘suspicious’ ones. You finally cracked them?”

“Matt and I did. He helped me out when I realized that those were Keith’s full hospital records.”

“What?”

“Well, I think they are at least,” she pointed at something on her screen. A short line of code that kept changing, switching to letters and numbers to crazy alien symbols and back again. “This is what we got.”

Lance crossed his arms. “You know I have no idea what that is, right?”

“Well, Matt and I didn’t, either.” Pidge paused again, like she was trying to come up with a simple way to explain him something very nerdy and very complex. “We spent most of the night trying to figure it out.”

“And?”

“And then we did.”

Lance was getting antsy now. “Pidge, you’re killing me here. Just spit it out.”

She did. “It’s a Galra encryption.”

“What?!”

“I cross referenced it with my personal database,” Pidge explained. “I found a match.”

“So you know who tried to bury Keith’s hospital records?”

“Yeah,” Pidge confirmed. “It was the Blade of Marmora.”

 

\---

 

To say Lance was panicking would have been an understatement.

_Hunk_ panicked. But Lance? Lance went straight up to hysteria, dabbled with a horrified frenzy, and settled for a quiet dismay in the space of about 10 seconds. But he was calm, really. Like this flat, quiet angle of sea before a violent storm hit. Blissfully ignorant of what was about to come.

Except Lance already knew way too much.

He tuned everything out, too horrified by Pidge’s recent discoveries to move from his spot on the bed. Somehow he still managed to process everything Pidge told him about Keith’s encrypted hospital file. About how well it had been hidden. About how it could be retrieved again only by the ones who knew where to look.

“I don’t understand,” his nails dug deep into the mattress. “Why going through all this trouble? They could have just destroyed the whole thing. Or maybe taken it away with them in one of their bases.”

Pidge didn’t have an answer. “I don’t know. They probably thought the file could become useful again at some point. Best case scenario? Someone’s looking out for Keith. Or maybe it’s a test run,” she added, as an afterthought.

That got Lance out of his daze pretty fast. He wanted to ask _what_ was there to test exactly, but he’s seen enough shit in the remote scientific stations of the Galra Empire to know better than voice his question. A virus? A chemical attack? A new form of quintessence? The alternatives were too scary to contemplate.

Lance pinched the bridge of his nose. “We need to figure this shit out soon. It’s getting way too complicated.”

Lance wondered, not for the first time, what were the chances of both him and Keith falling ill from the same long-forgotten disease. He thought about the ‘unexpected consequences’ of Keith’s surgery and about the ways the Juniberry Curse could alter reality. And then he remembered what everybody said about all the terrible things that people could be brought to do in the name of love.

Lance’s head felt like it was about to explode, all his worst fears eating him alive. Lotor, poisoning the Paladins with the very same quintessence that powered their Lions; a traitor, playing them all from the shadows; a friend, betraying them and turning them into puppets.

The petals scratched and burned in his lungs. Lance got up, moving his arms up and down as he paced around the room.

Pidge, on the other hand, was peacefully sitting cross-legged on the bed, eyes on her screen.

“How are you so calm?”

Pidge snorted. “I’m not,” she confessed. “Have you seen me and Matt at breakfast? I assure you, we _are_ worried about this. Just… in a different way.”

Lance forced himself to sit down again. His rabbit feet were tapping a million times a minute against the floorboards.

“What do we do now?” he asked. “We should tell everyone, right? I think we should tell everyone.” Ironic how things changed so fast, uh? Just a few minutes before he was the one begging everyone to keep their mouth shut, and now…

“You need to breathe,” Pidge said.

Lance’s head snapped up. “What?”

“Look, your head is not clear right now.”

“My head is perfectly—”

“We don’t know enough about what’s happening here yet,” Pidge continued, ignoring Lance’s protests. “If someone wanted to hurt Keith - or you, for that matter - they would have done so already.”

Lance had to concede the point. Whoever was responsible for what happened to Keith, and maybe even Lance himself, knew the Station and its hospital very well. The Paladins were on their turf now, and there was little they could have done - not without being able to contact the Castle for help. “So... what do you think?”

“I think that someone is trying to protect Keith.”

Before Lance could protest (because of his COMPLETELY RATIONAL FEARS), she added: “And maybe they’re trying to protect us too, if the Juniberry Curse and the Voltron Paladins are as compatible as I think they are.”

“So… we do nothing?” Forget Keith: Lance was the one close to blowing up right now. This was _insane_.

“We wait,” Pidge said. “You let me and Matt do some more digging, and you keep an eye on Keith and… figure things out.”

Lance bit down on his lip. Forget the flowers: _Hunk_ would be the one to kill him before this was all over. That was a lot of stuff to keep from him, even if it was for his own good. He still couldn’t imagine walking up to Hunk and telling him that they were maybe being subjected to some experiments, and maybe at risk of dying terribly. That would have been too much.

Pidge kept tapping away at her laptop.

After listening to that typing sound for a while, Lance got hit by another moment of clarity: “I take it that Matt’s head is fine, then?”

Pidge took a second to understand his question, like she’d been expecting another one. Then she nodded. “Oh, yeah. He’s fine, but he needed an excuse to snoop around the hospital some more. Not like he’ll get much done with Keith there...” she made a face.

“Great.” Amazing. Fantastic. Absolutely _brilliant_.

Just to recap the events of the evening: Lance was back to square one - just with more flowers floating around his chest and a gazillion fears that hadn’t been there before.

“This is a nightmare.” And the worst part of it? It all came back to finding out whether Keith’s happiness was real or not.

Lance rushed to the bathroom. At least this time, when he bent over the toilet, there was someone holding his head back.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance meets a fan, figures something out, and wins a Challenge.

Things felt way more manageable from The Other Side of Lunch (™).

After getting up from the bathroom floor, Lance napped all morning on Matt’s (or maybe Pidge’s) bed, and was now making his way through a three-course meal.

“Are you… alright?”

Colrin was clearly impressed by his skills with a spork. By now, Lance had already used it to chug down three bowls of food go, a salad, and a slice of cake.

“I’m a little hungry,” he said. “Okay, maybe I’m _a lot_ hungry.”

Keith leaned back on his chair. “Yeah, we can see that.”

He and Colrin had come back to the hotel around noon, bringing the news that Matt would stay a little longer at the hospital, ‘to _talk_ with Layra’. Lance had never Pidge roll her eyes so high. Even now, she seemed a bit… shifty.

She leaned over the table, trying to get Keith’s attention. “How are _you_ anyway? Is your arm alright?”

“Yeah,” Lance stopped chewing. “Did Layra figure out what was wrong with it?”

Keith sat back and tugged at his sleeve. “Yeah. She just pointed this weird device at me and said that I’m fine. It’s a rash. It’ll go away on its own.” He reached for a bowl of not-sugar across the table.

Pidge pursed her lips, like Keith being fine had been some kind of a let down for her. But Lance knew better than that: she was storing every detail of that conversation in her little, genius brain. Between one bite of alien fries and the next, she was trying to figure out if that rash had anything to do with the whole Juniberry Mess. Which was exactly what _he_ was doing anyway - minus the fries. Those things were too gummy for him.

Colrin scooped up a piece of bread, chasing him out of his thoughts. “It must have been a reaction to one of those soaps,” he said. “Keith doesn’t agree with them.”

Lance uhm’ed and gulped down the last of his cake. “Well, I’m glad you’re okay,” he said. “At least we can keep training this afternoon.”

The bowl of not-sugar fell sideways on the table.

Keith cursed. Twice.

“You okay?” Lance asked.

“Yeah.”

Colrin started cleaning up the mess. “Butterfingers,” he sing-songed.

Keith pushed his hands away, gently, and began putting the not-sugar back into the bowl. He glanced at Lance: “You still wanna train.” It was a statement, but also a question.

Lance frowned. “‘Course I do.” Things had gone well the day before, hadn’t they?

“Oh. Okay.” Keith put down the bowl, sugar all over his gloves.

“Alright then!” Pidge said, loud. She pushed her chair back with a screeching sound that made Lance cover his ears.

_Annoying pidgeon._

Pidge smirked in return. “Since you already have plans, I’m gonna go.”

“Go where?” Lance was genuinely curious to know, since she was supposed to, well, hack all their problems away.

“Science Fair,” Pidge said. She strapped her laptop on her back. “Hunk sent me a message before lunch. His new pet project is giving him some trouble.”

“The, uh, healing pod stuff?” Lance inquired, a bit anxious.

“Yup.”

“...is he panicking?”

“No more than you are.”

Lance gave Pidge another glare.

She shrugged. “Of course he’s panicking. He’s _Hunk_.”

“Why?” Keith butted in.

“Because he’s made of Hunk particles?”

“I meant why is he panicking.”

Pidge wrinkled her nose. “Well, he’s been tinkering with come code, borrowing some strings from the Station open source database and some other files we hacked into. But his program is not answering the way it’s supposed to, so he thinks he broke something. But, seriously, probably all he needs to do is clear his cache and the interface should...” she halted mid-techno rant, suddenly aware whom she was talking to. A cargo pilot, a drop-out and an alien ninja who liked it when stuff exploded.

While Lance was moderately sure they all knew what a cache was, Pidge couldn’t be, since she operated on a whole other level of geekery. She coughed into her fist:  “Anyway, knowing Hunk, he’ll come up with something groundbreaking by the end of the day”.

Keith made a noise of agreement.

“Yeah,” Lance seconded. “He just needs a push in the right direction.”

“The calm and collected one?” Colrin wondered out loud.

Pidge grinned like the evil gremlin she was. “Well, I’m not gonna push him on a roller coaster.”

Lance flinched at the thought.

“I’ll see you guys at dinner,” Pidge scooped up one last fry and left basically cackling.

When the sound of her laughter had disappeared under the quiet chattering of the dining room, Keith cleared his throat: “What did she mean before?”

Lance looked up from his food bowl. “The roller coaster thing?” he asked. “Are you sure you wanna talk about Hunk puking? We’re still eating.”

Keith gave him a look. “I was talking about what she said about you panicking.”

“Oh,” Lance finally put his spork down. “ _That_.”

“Are you… I don’t know, _worried_ about something?”

Lance threw a glance at Colrin for help, but the Marmorite raised an eyebrow at him, equally at loss.

Keith apparently noticed that silent exchange: “Were you…”, he coughed. “Were you nervous about something?”

Lance bit down his lips.  “Yeah, a little.”

“About what?”

“Uh, you know….. You, me… training. This whole mission.” Matt being in the hospital. Magical love diseases. And maybe the fact the Blades had been doing experiments on them. Lance moved his hands up and down his tights, palms sweaty. “It’s been a weird couple of days.”

He wasn’t telling the whole truth, but he wasn’t exactly lying, either. That had to count for something, right?

“Oh,” Keith fell back in his chair, arms crossed on his chest. “Yeah. Weird.”

Colrin took the chance to slip a comforting arm along the back of his seat.

Aaand welcome back to The Awkwardness (™)!

Lance must be losing his touch, because he swore he hadn’t had a normal conversation with anyone since the day before, at the food parlor. Maybe he needed to blow off some steam; shoot some more stuff. He was about to suggest to go back to the yellow lady, when a high-pitched squeal tried to burst his eardrums.

“Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaance!!!”

Something latched itself on his right leg.

Lance instinctively reached for his bayard. Keith and Colrin did the same with their own weapons, but they both froze mid-action, biting down on their lips, as to suppress a laugh.

When Lance looked down, he found that the ‘something’ holding him hostage was a little boy: a Voltron fan by the looks of it. He had a Blue Paladin T-Shirt on, and his four tentacles were currently squeezing him as hard as they could.

“Hey, little guy!” Lance grinned. “What’s your name?”

The boy was even younger than the one he had met the day before. And more shy, apparently. As soon as Lance turned his attention to him, he lost all his bravery and hid his face against Lance’s shin.

“His name’s Klitty!” a cheerful voice said. What must be Klitty’s mother came into the dining room, a Loverboy Lance toy in her hands – err, tentacles.

“Oh, what’s that?” Lance asked Klitty in his kid voice. “Is that a Blue Pal—a Red Lion pilot action figure?”

“You’re his favourite,” Klitty mother’s said.

“Am I?! Hey, you heard that, Keith?” he called. “I’m his _favorite_!”

_Take that, ten thousand years of Altean branding!_

A groan from the Marmorite department. Klitty finally looked up at Lance, then stared at the other side of the table. Keith raised his fingers in a lazy salute, while Colrin - who knew how to be charming - waved nice and wide at the little alien.

Lance felt a flutter in his chest. “Do you want my autograph?” he asked Klitty.

The boy nodded like crazy and tightened his grip against his leg. Lance was positive he was gonna find bruises there later.

Klitty’s mom handed him a pen and a paper. It was a drawing of Lance.

“This looks awesome!”

Lance’s other self was wearing a purple armor. He was holding a sword in one hand and a gun in the other. He was standing on top of a mountain, with something that resembled daisies at his feet. There was already a signature, at the bottom of the drawing: long, thin letters that spelled Klitty’s name in an alien tongue.

Lance loved everything about it, even the flowers. He added an extra twirl at his Lancey signature. “Here you go!”

A tail sprung up. Somehow, Lance managed not to screech as it seized the paper with a swift swooshing sound. After all, he couldn’t ruin it: Klitty was grinning like space Christmas had come earlier that year.

The boy hold on tight to his drawing, hugged Lance’s leg extra hard, and muttered a happy ‘thank you!’ that made Lance’s day about a million times better.

When Klitty’s mother finally got him to let go of Lance, the boy did so with the cutest frown. Then his tentacles did a twisty thing, and Klitty was off again. He run around the table and held up his pen and newly signed drawing. “Pwease?” he asked, eyes big and pleading.

Keith looked like he didn’t know what to do with himself. “I…. what?”

“Pwese?” Klitty asked again, raising on his toes.

Colrin was having the time of his life, savoring the whole scene with a huge grin on his face.

Lance was more merciful: “He wants you to sign it, Mullet.”

“Oh.” Keith took the pen.

Klitty beamed.

“Wasn’t Keith the fierce Altean one?” Klitty’s mother asked.

Lance started to explain that ‘Actually, it’s kind of a long story—’ when Klitty jumped in: “He’s the Red Paladin and he’s also the Black Paladin and a not-Paladin! He protects everyone and goes on dangerous missions, and he flies really good and his teeth get all sharp when he’s angry!”

Colrin burst out laughing.

“My teeth don’t get all sharp,” Keith said.

Klitty looked really confused at that. “But he said they do,” he raised a tentacle and pointed it at Lance.

“ _I_ did?”

“Yeah.” Klitty said. “On the Bluxega System.”

“He has all of your interviews taped,” Klitty’s mother explained.

“Oh…” Now that Lance thought about it, he might have said something like that, at some point. Maybe not in those exact words but… well, he kinda tended to say a lot of things when cameras were on him. Maybe rant a little.

Maybe.

Keith glowered at him for a second. Then he knelt down in front of Klitty. Lance got a weird feeling about that, for some reason.

“Did he ever say I have a cool knife?”

“You do?”

“Yeah!”

...and that apparently was the reason. Keith took out his luxite blade and activated it - right in the middle of the dining room hall.

Klitty squealed, Klitty’s mother gasped, and Colrin facepalmed at his boyfriend’s thoughtless antics.

Lance wasn’t surprised when hotel security rushed in to see if everything was alright. He _was_ more than a little impressed when Klitty’s mother managed to settle everything down with nothing more than a quick nod and a smile.

Then Klitty disarmed Keith by wielding a butter spoon and Lance had better things to think about.

 

\---

 

Lance’s mission to Figure Everything Out was back on track.

They left the dining room out of breath, chests heaving from laughter and the stress of their unexpected workout. After Klitty, more fans had joined them at their table, asking for handshakes and autographs.

Lance’s wrist hurt before he was done signing every drawing, hat and tentacle, but it was still early when they took their leave. The next Flying Sharks show wouldn’t take place until later that evening, so they all could go back to the Haunted House to train (and snoop around) some more. Lance really wanted to win a dragon’s heart of his own. There also were a couple of interesting moves he’d seen Keith do that could be added to the Voltron Show if needed and—

“You enjoy this a lot, don’t you?”

Keith was looking at him with an indulgent smile.

Lance was already lost. “What would ‘this’ be?”

“Showing off?” Colrin suggested with a friendly grin.

Keith shook his head. “Signing autographs, talking to fans… playing with kids,” he counted on his fingers.

“Well, I’m good at it.”

Keith tilted his head, worrying at his lower lip: “I guess so.” He called for the elevator.

Lance and Colrin exchanged a confused glance over the DING of the doors sliding open.

As the three of them got in, Lance had a thought: “You’re good at it too,” he told Keith.

“What? Babysitting?”

Lance giggled, imagining Keith trying to keep up with his little niece and nephew. “No,” he said. But judging from what he’s seen Keith do for Klitty over there, the Mullet was cut out for something else: “Performing! You know, doing the human pyramid thing, meeting the fans… razzle dazzling the crowd!”

He was not sure of what he was suggesting there, because he _could_ not see Keith ever agreeing to take part in one of Coran’s theatrical pieces. Maybe the parades would be a different kind of deal, though. After they saved some new planet Keith could go back pilot his Lion and show off what he could do with it. He wouldn't even have to risk his life in some stupid Marmora mission. And then Lance would yell at him for stealing the spotlight and—

Someone pressed the emergency button. The elevator halted between two floors with a ghostly cracking sound.

“You still think of yourself as a temporary replacement, don’t you?”

Lance jolted. “What?”

“You told Klitty that I was the Red Paladin,” Keith said.

“And the Black one, yes,” Lance confirmed. “That’s who you are.”

“ _Shiro_ is the Black Paladin—”

“Only when Black thinks it’s convenient.”

“—and _you’re_ the Red Paladin now.”

“I pilot the Red Lion,” Lance said, “that’s hardly the same thing, and you know that.”

There was more anger in his voice than he intended to. But that was all Keith’s fault: _he_ was the one who brought The Paladin Thing up in the first place. Actually, he was also the one who left. And now, when he sat in the cockpit, Lance could feel Red mourning him; yearning for its long-lost pilot - its _true_ Paladin.

No matter what Keith said, this wasn’t a simple math problem.

The flowers in his lungs started bothering him again. And there, between floor GuessWhat and floor GressWhatMinusOne, Lance realized something. Everything clicked into place.

“Why are you smiling?” Colrin frowned in concern and confusion.

_Because maybe it’s the Red Lion I’m in love with_ , Lance thought.

It was insane; but it also made sense. If the Juniberry Curse was linked to quintessence, maybe _Voltron_ had always been the answer to Lance’s problems. The bond between the Lions and their Paladins was something that couldn’t be forced; but it was made of more than their souls or whatever it was vibrating at the same frequency. It had everything to do with love, and respect and acceptance… and Red, like Allura had said, was the most temperamental and difficult Lion of them all. He hadn’t rejected Lance; but he hadn’t accepted him fully yet. Which was why...

“I want to earn it.”

Keith looked up at him again, confusion clear on his face.

Colrin voiced their question: “Earn what?”

“My… new place,” Lance said. He stared at Keith. “Strange as it sounds, I’ve been listening to your stupid advice. All the time you’ve been gone, I’ve been trying to earn Red’s respect. Sometimes it feels like he likes me, some others it’s like he’s just…”

“Playing with you like you were a little ball of yarn?”

“More like his favorite pet mouse,” Lance said. They shared a smirk.

Keith nodded. “Red likes keeping you on your toes. That’s how you know it cares for you.”

“Yeah,” Lance had to agree. “I think I figured that out.” Now he just needed to make his stupid flowers understand that as well.

Keith reached out for Lance, but when his hand was just about to touch his shoulder, the lights flickered off and on again.

“What the quiznak,” Colrin swore. His hands were already wrapped around his chakrams.

Lance’s eyes moved from the walls to the ceiling, puzzled. Nothing. He pushed the emergency button again, and the elevator starts its descent again. No hiccups; no shaking: it was like nothing ever happened.

Then he noticed something weird: a kind of… vibration.

Keith was laughing silently, holding his belly. “What’s with you, me, and elevators?” he asked.

Lance got a sudden flash of the two of them in their swimming trunks, towels over their heads, as the lights went dark around them. He shook his head: “Seriously, if this is Hunk meddling again…”

“Wait, that was _Hunk_ last time?” Keith’s mirth was replaced by outrage.

Lance shrugged. He could never figure out a better explanation than Hunk as to _why_ Allura’s state-of-the-art elevator just happened to malfunction the exact moment he and Keith had decided to look for the Altean pool.

He _knew_ something (or _someone_ ) had to have a hand in it. And since that little incident _had succeeded_ in making him and Keith work better together, Hunk, the huge gossip with the big heart that he was, was his prime suspect. The only problem was…

“I never found any proof,” he explained.

Keith’s eyes went huge. “Pidge must have helped him,” he realized.

“Do you think that counts as mutiny?”

“It might!”

Colrin sighed (a ‘what am I going to do with you idiots’ kind of sigh’). “That’s not how mutiny works…”

The elevator doors opened with a gentle ping.

Before Lance could step out, Keith rested an hand on his shoulder, keeping him in place.

“Mullet…?” Lance half-turned to look at him, puzzled.

Keith hesitated for a second; then took his hand back, scratching up and down his left arm. “You’ve more than earned Red’s respect, you should know that.”

Lance held his gaze. Maybe Keith was right; maybe Red cared for him on some level; but whatever their bond was, it still wasn’t enough: the flowers were living proof of it. That didn’t matter though, because Lance was just getting started: “That was just the first step,” he said. “I want to be the greatest Red Paladin ever. Better than Alfor. Better than _you_.”

And, look: Lance knew he was basically admitting that Keith had the upper hand there, but…

“Oh, yeah?” Keith’s voice was hoarse: rough like when he was getting ready for a fight he knew he would enjoy. “Is that a challenge?”

Lance made sure there were no misunderstanding this time. “You bet it is.”

Colrin sighed even deeper. “Ugh, _Paladins_.”

He promptly shoved Lance out of the elevator.

 

\---

 

The Challenge was simple: _Do everything better than your rival_.

Easy, right? There were no other rules other than to humiliate the competition, make them eat the dust, break every single one of their records and—

“I think I’m going to wait right here,” Colrin said.

“What are you talking about?” Lance protested. “We have baby sharks to pet! Baby sharks, Colrin!”

“And I see absolutely no way how that could go wrong.” Colrin was all sarcasm today. “So I think I’ll stay right here, just in case you two need a timely rescue.” He sat down on the sand and untied one of his chakrams from his belt.

“My hero,” Lance put his hands on his chest like a damsel in distress, careful not to put too much pressure on it.

Colrin gave him an eye roll in return. “I can’t keep up with you two, anyway. You are…” he tilted his head and checked out the sand sculpture Lance and Keith had just built. “...too intense,” he decided.

And… okay Lance had to agree with him: they got a bit carried away there. Their replica of the Castle of Lions was, maybe, a lot bigger than the average sand sculpture. By six feet or so. But, honestly, who could blame them?! The sand there could turn into different colors and was literally _made_ to come up with that kind of stuff!

Lance and Keith obviously weren’t the only ones who thought so. On the beach, surrounded by blazing torches, that evening were also a giant wolf, a tentacle monster, and what looked like a Hobbit, hairy feet and all. Colrin seemed weirdly fascinated by that last one. He studied it in silence as he leaned against the tower where the Red Lion hangar would be.

Lance realized that this wasn’t the first time that he decided to sit something out that day. Colrin had forfeited The Challenge (™) right about the second they left the hotel. He _had_ taken part in some of the more entertaining activities, like the ride on the spinning tea cups; but overall he seemed more interested in making sure that Lance and Keith didn’t kill themselves over their own stupidity rather than joining the fun. Colrin would rather watch them from afar, like the responsible alien begin he was.

And that maybe… (just maybe!)... worried Lance a little. Because what if Colrin’s attitude was connected to what Matt had said about Keith being a ticking time bomb? What if he was just making sure Keith was happy, and that Lance wasn’t somehow taking away the stability he had found...?

Those weren’t nice thoughts to have there, on a perfectly nice beach that reminded him of home. The petals came back to tell him that. Lance swallowed them down and aimed for something nicer.

He threw a look to the landing stage a few dozen feet from the Sand Castle, where Keith was still busy telling the booth guy that _yes,_ they would very much like to visit the petting pond with all the space sharks. When he was sure the Mullet wasn’t paying attention to him, Lance took his chance. He sat down on the warm sand, next to Colrin, and thanked him.

Even now, the Blade understood what Lance meant without further explanations. “You’re welcome,” he said with a knowing smile.

“Also, I’m sorry for kinda blowing all your dates,” Lance continued.

He peeked around the Castle and gave another glance at the landing stage, where Keith was arguing over what _feeding the sharks_ meant on the Station. All things considered, that was probably a wise discussion to have.

“Not this again.” Colrin brought Lance’s attention back to himself. He clanged his chakrams together. “I told you, it’s fine. Plus, shouldn’t you know Keith better than that?”

The thing was: Colrin often understood Lance very well. Lance rarely returned the favor.

“Uh? What do you mean?”

“You’ll figure it out.”

“I really don’t get what—”

“You’ll figure it out,” Colrin said again.

Lance pouted. He wanted to talk to Colrin some more, but Keith’s head peeped from the other side of the Castle.

“There you are!” he said.

He had brought with him a couple of wetsuits that were supposed to help them breathe underwater even without an helmet on. Lance almost cried rainbows when Keith explained how the whole Underwater Petting Zoo worked: he would finally fulfill his lifelong dream of being a mermaid!

He took off his jacket and got a leg out of his jeans when Colrin made a sound that snapped him out of his daydream.

Keith was standing a few feet from him, T-shirt already off and Marmorite suit clinging to his torso. He was staring past Lance’s shoulder, looking at Colrin with glazed eyes as he unbuttoned his pants.

_Oh_ , _come on!,_ Lance was right in the middle of The Awkward (™). Again.

And that was ridiculous, right? The Paladins changed around each other all the time (even Pidge!). But now those _totally not platonic_ vibes were ruining everything for him.

Lance cleared his throat and hopped around the Castle, hiding behind the first available tower. Just to get himself out of the Line of Lust.

“Oh, _come on,_ ” he heard Keith whisper behind him, like Lance was some kind of prude or something.

But whatever! A minute later they were both in the water, surrounded by baby sharks and other sea creatures that swam swiftly around the pond, chasing each other and purring like kittens. Lance could actually _hug_ them and _kiss_ them if he wanted - and he did, often, because this was heaven and he was five years old again.

The wetsuits turned out to be way better than the oxygen bubble Queen Luxia had given Lance and Hunk back on the frozen planet.

Keith’s mullet hair flowed like a dark crown around his head. He looked like he belonged there, underwater, cheerful and free as he swam along with the sharks. Lance wondered if the Lions had it wrong, and if it was Keith who was supposed to pilot Blue. At some point he even managed to catch the attention of a tiny octopus.

The small creature (Lance decided to call it Tiny) crawled along Keith’s left arm, making his wetsuit change color where it touched him. It was like seeing one of those coffee mugs that reacted to warmth; except that Tiny swirled around, creating intricate patterns with his tentacles, like it was using Keith’s body to paint some kind of drawing.

After a while Keith jolted, like he had suddenly remembered something.

Lance’s happy bubble burst. “Are you alright?” he asked.

Keith smiled (a tight, forced smile) and nodded. “Yeah, I’m okay,” he scratched his left arm, driving Tiny away.

The creature left a trail of blue and magenta in its wake, and Keith’s eyes followed it with wonder, as it swam to Lance and attached itself to his chest.

“Oh, hey little guy!” Lance cooed.

Tiny looked even smaller up close. Its touch left a tingling warmth whenever it came in contact with his wetsuit, making his body glow in a bright silvery and blue light.

Lance wondered if they could take Tiny home. Maybe he could ask Coran to build a little aquarium, near Kaltenecker’s stable, so the two of them could keep each other company when Lance was out saving the universe.

A shark swam closer, jealous Tiny was getting all the attention now. The creature prompted Keith to pet it with a nudge of its head, and he complied at once, fingers trailing up and down its fins.

When they got out of the water, the first thing Lance did after putting his clothes back on was asking the Petting Zoo manager for the photos of their underwater expedition.

“They’ve already been uploaded to his user account,” the guy said in a bored tone.

Keith blinked. “I have an account...?”

The alien took their wetsuits back and disappeared in the back of his booth without even bothering to answer them.

“Guess I’ll figure it out later,” Keith said, adjusting his jacket.

Lance’s stomach growled awake. “Man, I’m starving,” he patted his empty belly. “I think I’m gonna try out some new junk food today.”

“Don’t you do that every day?”

“Ahah,” Lance fake-laughed. “You can't stand the fact that I'm winning, can't you?“

“What are you talking about?“

“I won three challenges out of five!“

“You _what_?”

“I’m on the lead!” Sure, Keith had flown higher than him on their swing ride, and he definitely ate the most candy floss, but Lance was still leading. He started counting on his fingers: “I've built the biggest part of the Sand Castle—“

“By stealing my bucket,“ Keith protested.

“I know nothing about your bucket.“

“It's small, red—“

“Oh it's small, uh?“

“...you don’t deserve the bucket.”

Two fingers: “Then I blew the most soap bubbles.”

“Seriously?”

Three fingers up: “And then I petted the most sharks!“ Lance declared.

Keith stared at him, befuddled. “Petting sharks was not part of the challenge!”

Lance grinned: “Of course not. I just made it up.“

“That's against the rules!“

“No, it isn't. There are no rules other than winning by any means possible!“

“There were no rules _at all_!”

“I know! That’s why I made some up!”

Keith glowered at him. “You…”, he said. “You...” he tried a second time.

“Yes, I?“ Lance kept on teasing.

Keith bit the inside of his cheek, trying to calm down. It didn’t work. “You wait right here!“ he finally screamed, pointing his finger to the ground. “We’re gonna settle this once and for all,” he turned on his heels and strutted all the way back to the Petting Zoo.

“But I'm hungry!“ Lance protested.

Keith didn't listen to him; he kept on walking, until he disappeared inside the booth.

Lance shook his head and leaned against their Sand Castle for support.

“Unbelievable!”, he said. “I’ve already told you this, but I don't know how you can stand him sometimes.”

Colrin, still cross-legged on the sand, propped his chin up on his elbow. “I don't know,“ he said with a fond smile. “How can _you_ stand him?“

Lance didn't bite. “Nope, you're not playing me like that!“ he warned. “Don’t bail on me, man. You have to tell me what you like about him!”

Colrin didn’t want to make it easy for him. At all. “Why? You find it so hard to like my Red?”

“Of course not,” Lance denied. Then he realized what he said. “I mean, yes. No? Not anymore. It’s…”

“Complicated?” Colrin guessed. “Yeah, that’s the fun part.”

Lance admitted temporary defeat. He sat down as well, sand between his fingers, and rolled back his jacket sleeves. That’s when he noticed a blinking light on his wrist communicator.

“News from the others?“ Colrin leaned in.

Lance checked the logs. Someone had pinged him while he and Keith were underwater. Both calls came from Matt, who was probably looking for another way to make Lance feel guilty about 'not being careful with Keith's feelings'.

Lance couldn't find the energy to call him back on an empty stomach. Plus, now that he had found the origin of his under-appreciated feelings (i.e. the Red Lion), he wanted to avoid the Holts and their unavoidable accusations of being that kind of _animal lover_. Matt and Pidge were bound to have a field day with that.

A petal almost escaped his lips. Lance coughed and forced himself to swallow it.

Colrin studied him for a while. “Anything important?“ he asked, nodding towards the wrist communicator.

“Nah,” Lance shrugged. “No emergency for once.”

“The calm before the storm.”

“Please don’t even joke about that.” Five days of calm and peace: that’s all he had wanted from Galaxy Station 87. But nope: that had apparently been too much to ask!

Colrin quietly got his chakrams in the air again. He played with them until Keith started making his way back towards them. The Mullet had something tied around his left wrist: a small bag filled with water. As he came closer, Lance tried to make out what was inside of it, until he recognized a familiar shape.

“Tiny!” Lance squealed.

Keith halted right in front of him, holding out his wrist. Lance got up on his knees, trying to take a closer look. Tiny was floating happily in his new (and temporary) home. Even out of the sea pond, it made the water change colors as it floated around the bag.

“I can't believe it,” Lance said, looking up at Keith. “You stole Tiny!”

“I didn't _steal_ him,” Keith objected. “I bought him. And he's not mine. He's _yours_.”

Lance opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, no sound coming out. “What?” he finally managed.

Keith unwrapped the elastic band that tied Tiny to him. “He's yours,” he repeated. He reached for Lance’s arm and secured the bag around his wrist.

“Oh,” Lance said.

“Do you like him?”

“Are you sure he’s a he?”

“ _Do you like him_?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do…”

“Good,” Keith said. “Because he's the second present I give you in two days.”

“Yeah… he is,” Lance said, remembering the dragon heart resting on his bedside table.

Keith held up two fingers. “You only gave me one present,” he folded his index and smirked. “This means I won the Gift Challenge.”

Lance's brain, still focused on Tiny’s swimming around his plastic bag, took a couple of seconds to process what Keith had said - and that he’d just flipped him the bird. When it did, his jaw dropped. “Wait. What?!”

“It’s a tie,” Keith said, all smug.

“Agh,” Lance replied, too outraged for words.

Behind them Colrin was laughing so hard he would probably wet his pants. And Keith... Keith just kept standing there, all proud of himself.

“Ugh, fine! It’s a tie!” Lance admitted. He pointed a menacing finger at Keith’s. “You’re lucky Tiny is cute and cuddly and will make fast friends with Kaltenecker!”

“Whatever makes you feel better…”

Lance took the bag to his chest, and Tiny thanked him by pushing his tentacles against its plastic walls, like he was trying to wrap them all around Lance.

Keith’s smile suddenly disappeared.

“Is everything okay?” Lance asked.

For a second there, Keith looked like he wanted to ask something in return. But then he balled his hands into fists and pressed his lips into a thin line. That was un-Keith enough to worry Lance. “Mullet?” he prompted again.

Keith took his eyes away from Tiny. “Lance, are you sick?”

It was like getting hit with a bucket of icy water.

Lance was sure he couldn’t hear of feel anything for a second there; and when his brain came back online he almost lost his balance. He was glad the rubber band held, because otherwise Tiny would have crashed into the hot sand when his arms fell to his sides.

Lance tried to brush the question off. He tried to say something like ‘What are you talking about?’, or ‘Me? Sick? Pfff!’, ‘What do you think? That I’m some kind of lovesick kid?’ but the words never make it past his lips.

Right then, the lights went out again. It wasn’t like the flickering in the elevator, that early afternoon. This time, it was like something had sucked all the light from the world.

The torches on the beach went off one by one. Then it was the turn of the light bulbs and the neon signs of the nearby shops. One after the other they stopped glowing, until every attraction of the park halted. The music cut off abruptly, leaving the visitors to stare at each other in stunned silence.

Lance looked up at the sky. The artificial twin suns weren’t there anymore, and the bright blue once surrounding them was turning a deeper shade of purple and gray. Afternoon became evening, and evening, night: dusk swallowed the stars until all was left was an endless darkness.

Galaxy Station 87 was dead.

In the distance, the screaming started.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...the tunnel of what?!

Lance couldn’t breathe.

His head felt fuzzy, and there was a heavy weight pressing against his back, crushing his chest from above. He coughed, tasting bile, and thought that the flowers had managed to knock him out at the worst possible time: just when he had started figuring out how to woo the Red Lion into loving him back.

But then, the weight pinning him down moved, rolling to the side, and air came back to his lungs. Lance dared to open his eyes. An electrical buzz echoed in his head.

There were five red bars in the lower right corner of his vision: five lines that informed him that his vital signs were good, except for an elevated heart rate. A blue circle guided his eyes up to the sky above, still dark and silent in the aftermath of the blackout. That’s when a string of letters beeped alive, informing him that the dome surrounding the Station was intact. The artificial shield was still doing its job and keeping in the oxygen.

Lance rolled in the sand, checking to make sure that Tiny hadn’t been crushed in the commotion. The creature waved at him from inside his bag, still filled with all the water he needed.

Lance sighed in relief. When he turned around, he found Keith laying on the sand next to him, cheeks flushed with strain and hair disheveled. “It held,” he said, staring up at the dome.

“Yeah,” Lance said. And then he flinched. His voice sounded wrong: metallic and empty, devoid of all the things he felt. Like worry. Or relief. Or anger.

“What the quiznak, Keith!”

After tackling Lance, Keith had put his Blade helmet on him and activated the mask. Lance took it off and handed it back to the self sacrificing moron by his side. He had never glared at someone so hard in his life, not even when Hunk had made fun of him for that old Shiro poster on his wall.

Keith hesitated a second before taking his helmet back. “I thought the barrier would shut down as well,” he explained.

“Yeah, I got that part,” Lance said. “You shouldn’t have done it.” 'It' being risking his stupid life for Lance's.

It was Keith’s turn to look pissed now. “What the hell are you talking about?” He grabbed the helmet of discord with a curt swing of his arm. “You would have done the same.”

“Well, yeah!” Lance argued. “But that’s hardly the same thing!”

Keith snorted. “Why?”

_Because I don’t have a history of kamikaze missions._ “Because!” Lance put his foot down. “Just because!” he insisted.

“Look, I just didn’t think about it, okay?” Keith scratched his arm. “I just felt…”

“I know,” Lance said. “I get it.”

Frankly, he didn’t know whether to thank Keith or punch him in the face.

On one hand, he was a little offended  that Keith thought he needed to be protected; on the other, the Mullet cared for him. He had obviously acted on instinct - without considering for one tick what could have happened to _him_ if the dome had actually stopped working.

Lance tore his gaze away.

Colrin had gotten back in his Blade Soldier mode, mask on and weapons ready to fend off any potential attack. His mind was in the right place.

“We need to figure out what’s going on,” Lance said.

He took off the bag still tied around his wrist and hid it inside the Sand Castle. “We’ll come back for you when it’s safe,” he told Tiny.

The little creature answered by turning the water a bright Altean blue. Around them, the silence stretched on.

“You’d expect some kind of alert in case of a blackout,” Colrin said, coming close.

“You think the Station is under attack?” Lance asked, brushing sand off his pants.

“It might be,” Keith said. He stripped down to his Marmorite suit and hid his jacket and the rest of his civilian clothes near Tiny.

Lance took a look at his very vulnerable, very not laser proof,  80% cotton-20% spandex attire and groaned. “Worst holiday ever,” he sighed.

He was reaching for his bayard when a soft ping from his wrist device alerted him of an incoming call.

“Pidge!” he answered. “Are you guys alright?”

When she started talking, her voice was scratchy and her hologram image surrounded by fuzzy static. “Guys!” she tried. “It’s the Galra.”

“What?”

Pidge, huddled somewhere in a hall full of screens, let Hunk slide into view.

He wrapped his hands around the camera. “The evil Galra generals we brought here took control of the Station,” he said, all in one breath.

“WHAT?”

“How the hell did they escape?” Keith wondered.

“They didn’t,” Pidge fought her way back to the screen. “We let them free when we handed them over to our new Rebel friends.”

“The double crossing traitors!” Hunk interjected.

“They were working together all along,” Pidge continued. “The USB stick the Rebels gave us had a virus in it.”

“What?” Keith asked in a strangled voice.

Pidge’s hologram flared up and then dimmed again. “When we plugged the USB stick into the Science Fair's computers, it infected the system that controls the whole station.”

“I just wanted to improve the healing pods a little,” Hunk lamented.

“I already told you it wasn’t your fault,” Pidge reprimanded him. “I should have checked it more thoroughly.”

Lance felt his nails dig into his palms. It was because of him that she hadn’t done that.

“So… we’re trapped?” Keith asked, unaware of everything.

“For now, but—”

A buzz of static. Hunk turned around to fire at something. Pidge got closer to the screen. “We need to reboot the system before the Galra and the Rebels let their ships in.”

“Wait a sec, ‘We’?!” Lance shrieked. “What about Sanrin and his security team?”

“Half of them are trapped in here with us,” Pidge said. “And apparently most of the others are AWOL or dealing with panicking civilians.”

“Oh, great.”

“What’s the plan?” Keith asked above the noise.

“Well, luckily I’ve been poking around the system too, lately, for… personal reasons,” Pidge shared a quick look with Lance. “I can take control from here, if you manage to reboot the core server.”

“And _how_ do we do that?” Keith asked again.

“The core server is hidden in the House of Mirrors,” Pidge said.

“Why would they—”

“Because that’s the most secure building here, Lance,” she went on. “You can take a ride through the Tunnel of Love to get there.”

“Through the tunnel of _what_?” One of Colrin’s chakrams fell to the sand.

Hunk squinted. “You’re kidding, right?” he asked, as Lance and Keith did the same.

“Guys,” Pidge puffed her chest out. “The Science Fair in under siege, the Station is in chaos, and I’m working on a laptop that’s running on fumes. I can assure you I am _not_ kidding.”

“Alright, alright,” Lance made a calming gesture. “No need to get angry.”

“Just get there as soon as you can!” Pidge ordered. “I don’t know how long the two of us can hold the fort here.”

Lance nodded. “Fine, you guys wait there, we’re gonna do the nerdy stuff for you.”

Pidge ended the call with an ungrateful roll of her eyes. A second later, Lance’s wrist communicator pinged and showed him a map of the park.

The entrance to the Tunnel of Love wasn’t far from where he, Keith and Colrin were now. They’d just need to follow the shoreline until the end of the beach, maybe a quarter of a mile east.

“We can get there on foot, no problem,” Lance said. Then, just because he could, he turned around with a smirk: “Are you ready to ride a swan?”

 

\---

 

They, in fact, would not ride a swan.

The Rebels were waiting for them at the Tunnel of Love and ambushed the three of them as soon as they reached the boarding dock. Meaning: two Paladins and a Blade walked into a barely lit-cave, with no way out, and the Rebels had them surrounded faster than they could say ‘quiznak!’.

Colrin and Keith managed to knock most of those double-crossing quiznakers out pretty fast, but then Lance did A Very Stupid Thing (™). He was aiming his blaster at the group leader when one of Colrin’s chakrams came into view.

Lance hesitated half a second too long before pulling the trigger. He fell to the side, failing the shot and knocking the chakram out of course. “Lance, careful!” Keith called out. The Rebel leader let out a taunting laughter.

The second shot had even worse results. It hit the ceiling, and a rain of stalactites came down on them. Lance heard Colrin swear, and then something knocked him down, dust and rubble falling from all directions.

When he came to, Lance coughed up a couple of bloody petals and a lot of dirt. Luckily, nobody noticed that last bit. He cleaned away the evidence and, ignoring the burning in his lungs, started looking for his friends.

Keith had found shelter farther inside the cave: he was laying on the ground in a fetal position, eyes closed, but he was already stirring awake, and it seemed like he would be fine. His boyfriend, on the other hand, was in a more complicated situation.

“Colrin!” Lance called. “You alright man?”

His hands searched the wall of rubble that trapped them on different sides of the cave.

“I’m fine!”, Colrin said, voice barely audible. “Are _you_ okay?”

A few feet behind Lance, Keith made a disapproving sound, spitting something on the dusty ground. He sighed in relief. “We’re fine. We won’t get out anytime soon, though.”

There was no way they could move all that debris on their own without causing more damage. Well... Pidge and Hunk could have figured something out, but Lance’s communicator was on the frizz now. Plus, that surprise attack probably meant that the Galra and the Rebels were monitoring their comms frequencies.

“We’ll have to go the House of Mirrors,” Lance reasoned, still tapping at his wrist device in frustration. “We’ll figure out our next move from there.”

“If we make it there in time,” Keith said. He was sitting up now, holding the right side of his head and flinching whenever his fingers brushed against a sore spot.

“Your jetpack’s busted,” Lance warned him when he noticed the smashed propellers.

“At least I had one,” Keith said, nodding at Lance.

“Gold star for you,” he joked.

But yeah: Lance not wearing his Paladin armor might become a serious problem; at least he never got anywhere without his bayard. He knelt down and helped Keith clean his forehead wound as best as he could.

“It’s just a graze,” he said. “My nephew had worse when my sister accidentally hit him with a soap bar. She thought he was me,” he added a second later. The incident was nothing to talk about, but at the time it scared Lance enough that even now he made sure to have some Hello Kitty band-aids in his pockets at all times.

Keith said nothing as he applied one to his forehead. He kept looking at the wall separating them from the outside world (and Colrin), like he could glare the problem away.

Lance was about to apologize ( _again_ ) when he noticed something coming their way. Something… _shimmering_.

They both got into a fighting stance before they understood what they were seeing.

It was not a swan. In fact, there were no swans to ride at all. When it came to romantic getaways, Galaxy Station 87’s preference fell on bees: giant, scary looking bees with fuzzy bodies and menacing stings that were probably thicker than Shiro’s thighs.

“I call dibs on the head,” Keith said after a while.

Lance gaped at him.

“What?” Keith shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll be fine on the bottom.”

“It’s an _abdomen_ , not a bottom!” Lance protested.

He knew he was anatomically right, but no amount of whining saved him from straddling a giant bee’s fuzzy behind. And, by the way? The whole thing wasn’t _that_ bad. The mechanical bee was surprisingly soft, and Lance took full advantage of that, bouncing up and down while Keith kept searching the darkness in front of them.

He just needed to stay away from the stingy Shiro thingie and—

“Should you really be thinking about _that_?” Keith asked. He climbed past the wings of their bee and towards its head.

Lance, legs astride and feet dangling in the air, just shrugged. “I can’t help it: I rant when I panic.”

“You always rant,” Keith pointed out.

“Well, I’m always lowkey panicking,” Lance confessed. “People usually don’t notice because Hunk gets all the ranting credit when he’s around. It’s been like that since we met; I guess he’s just more flashy and stuff. But it doesn’t matter: I’m still gonna sue him for unfair competition one day!”

“Do you plan to sue everyone for unfair competition?”

“No. Just those who deserve it.”

Keith crouched down. He held onto the fuzz on the bee's thorax and looked at the darkness ahead, frowning. Lance was quick to follow his gaze.

He tried to make out the shape of the cave around them, but - of course - he had no luck. The only light in there came from the bees themselves. The fluorescent pollen they collected throughout the tunnels made their mechanical bodies sparkle in soft hues of blue and purple. Unlike the swans on Earth, the bees didn’t follow the course of any river; they floated around the cave instead, diving and ascending without ever needing to flap their wings.

As they buzzed around from one flower to another, Lance tried several times to guess how far from the ground they were. He never got a clear answer, but he was pretty sure falling from up there wouldn’t be a nice experience.

Keith had to agree with him when he mentioned that. The bees kept too far away from each other and the walls: attempting to jump in the dark would be suicide. ...not to mention the fact that they were already one man down.

...that was a depressing thought.

Lance needed a distraction. “Keith, what do your Galra eyes see?”

Keith glanced back at him. “A donkey riding a bee.”

“I’m more like a suave cat.”

“Are you done?”

Lance crossed his arms and bounced one last time, scuttling closer to the thin space where the thorax of the bee met its abdomen. Their ride buzzed its disapproval. “I’m bored,” Lance said.

“You just said you were panicking.”

“I’m panicking _and_ bored. It’s a bad combination.”

“Clearly,” Keith rolled his eyes. “Nothing we can do about that, though.” He climbed down again, past the unmoving wings, and sat on the lower half of the bee’s thorax, facing Lance.

“Won’t you get sick that way?” Lance asked, a bit worried.

He was already having flashbacks of a field trip he and Hunk went to, their first year at the Garrison. Needless to say, that train ride was how his friend’s puking legend began.

Keith shrugged. “It doesn’t bother me. Iverson once made me pilot for a whole month in reverse like this.”

“Seriously? Is that even possible?”

“Yeah. It was hell, but it turned out to be useful. I almost puked on his shoes the first time, though,” Keith remembered.

Lance gave him a devious smile. “You should have.”

“I wanted to,” Keith confessed. “But Shiro would have killed me.”

“We don't vomit on our superior officers’ superior boots, Keith!” Lance said, chest puffed out and hands on his hips. “That’s not appropriate behavior for our star cadet!”

“You need to stay calm and focused!” Keith held his chin up.

“Swallow your pride!”

“Don’t get pissed!”

“Don't blow it!”

“Oh, there was nothing I wanted to blow.”

Lance stilled at that.

Keith realized what he had just said, and got very, very red in the face: “I didn’t mean—”

“I wasn’t thinking _that_!”

“—even if it’s true!”

They both froze.

Then they both burst out laughing. The bee’s wings gave a little flutter.

“Careful,” Keith said, reaching out for Lance.

The bee got closer to a cluster of flowers glowing in the darkness, about a hundred meters below them. Its body swayed gently in the air, and the pollen glowed with more intensity as it started floating around them like little dots of light.

The bee rubbed it forelegs together and dove right into the center of the biggest flower, hungry for its nectar. As the creature's head disappeared between the petals, Keith and Lance slid closer to each other. They crossed their ankles together, on each side of the bee's body, and held on to its fuzz, trying not to fall.

“This place violates every security measure known to the universe, I swear,” Lance complained after a while.

Keith grunted his agreement. “To be fair, the pamphlets did say that the park was deadly fun.”

“I would have settled for a less mortal adjective.”

The bee cleaned its legs and took flight again, forcing them to hold onto each other by the upper arms in order to keep their balance.

“How long ‘till we reach the House of Mirrors?” Lance wondered.

Keith looked at the ceiling. “Maybe another ten minutes at this speed? I think we’re under the Haunted House right now.”

Lance frowned, thinking about all the stuff Keith had figured out all on his own about the Station. “You know the park pretty well, don’t you?”

“Not really.” Keith said, eyes still wandering. “Kolivan brought me there only a couple of times.”

“He’s pretty strict, isn’t he?”

“He can be. He follows the Blade of Marmora Code, so he needs to prepare us to do what's necessary to—”

“Get yourselves killed even when that’s unnecessary?” Lance had no idea where _that_ had come from, but he wasn't taking it back. If anything, he was making it worse: “He's been teaching you pretty well, then.”

Keith let go of his arms like Lance’s skin was burning him: “The mission comes first.”

The way he said that felt almost like he’d been reading from a book. Because _of course_ the Blades would brainwash Keith into thinking that idiocy. Lance should have known! Stupid cult-like brotherhood thingie of the hooded f—

_Deep breaths, man_ , whispered a Hunk-like voice in his head.

“ _Lives_ come first,” Lance said, never letting go of Keith’s arms. “And whatever Kolivan's been telling you, your life matters too.”

Keith hung his head low. “It does. But I'm still expendable. We all are.”

“ _We_?!” Lance used his grip on Keith's ankles to force his attention back to him. “Me too now?! Figure it out, Mullet. Because you’ve told me the opposite just a few hours ago!” And, you know, he’d been ready to die in his place; that also seemed pretty relevant to Lance.

“No, not _you_.” There was something wrong in Keith’s voice. It was... weak and soft. Almost like a tired whisper. “…us Blades.”

_Us Blades._ Okay. Lance was angry because of a million new reasons now. Colrin, among them, since the guy seemed to be getting the very short end of the very stick there. “So that’s why you pulled that stunt on Naxzela?” Lance asked. “You thought you would save us by crashing your ship against the Galra cruiser.”

“How do you know about that?” Keith asked, pale under the faint lights of the cave.

Lance pressed his tongue on the inside of his cheek. He didn’t answer; Keith didn’t deserve an answer right then - but maybe he needed something else.

“You are not expendable, Keith.” Lance spelled it out, words slow and clear on his lips.

Another pause.

“...then what am I?”

“Missed. Appreciated. Loved,” Lance said, thinking about the Paladins, Coran and the Lions. Thinking about Colrin and himself: “I won't say this ever again, not even under torture, so listen.” He held on tighter, hands on Keith’s shoulders now. “I can’t replace you. Not as a Pilot; nor as a friend, or anything else. No-one can.”

“Is this about you being unsure about Red again?”

Lance felt a sting to his chest. Part of the issue would always be about him coming in second (third, or deadly last) place, but... “No,” he said. Not now. He wouldn't be selfish about this now. “This is about _you_ being part of Voltron.”

“Even if I’m no longer there?”

“You _are_ still there. And still part of it,” Lance said. “Once a Paladin, forever a Paladin, right?” His voice became rougher: “We are worried about you, Keith. All of us. Even _I_ , and… we miss you.”

Right on cue, Lance’s chest got warmer, Red’s feeling for Keith reaching him all the way to the Station, from galaxies far away.

Keith smiled, a bit sad, and raised his hand to Lance's wrist. “You said that about a million times already.”

“Yeah! Wanna hear it one more time?” Lance quipped. “For some reason, your Mullet brain is having problems getting it.”

“Yeah, well... I'm told I can be a bit slow when feelings are involved.”

“Color me shocked,” Lance said, holding up his palms.

Keith looked away again. He sank his hands in the bee's fuzz, making the creature buzz again. “I've been having problems with the Blades lately,” he revealed.

Lance shivered. “What kind of problems?”

“My mother and I agree that sometimes you can stumble upon things that are more important than a mission. And I think I’ve found one.” Keith scratched the back of his head, never meeting Lance’s eyes.

Lance was stunned. He had always known there had to be a reason if he liked Krolia that much... even if he still was, well, super-pissed at her for leaving baby Keith in the first place. Lance bet it was her fault the kid grew up with _zero_ fashion sense. Still, if she could help put an end to that stupid ‘mission before life’ attitude…

“That’s… good?” Lance tried.

Colrin was a lucky guy.

Keith smiled. A real smile this time, even if a shy one. “Yeah. I think so.”

The bee took a sudden turn to the left and dived into a pollen-filled flower hanging from the ceiling.

Lance slid forward, bumping against Keith. “Sorry.”

He tried to scutter back, but Keith wouldn’t let him move away: “You never answered me,” he said, keeping Lance in place.

“About what?”

“Are you sick?”

The darkness stretched on around them, and Lance got lost in it, both cold and hot where his and Keith's bodies touched. Keith must have recognized the symptoms of the Juniberry Curse in him.

Lance wanted to deny it, say that everything was fine (that everything _would be_ fine) - but he felt he no longer could keep up with the charade. He was too tired for that.

“Yeah, Mullet. I'm sick,” Lance said, a hand to his chest. “But I’m gonna fix it.” He was sure of that. He knew who he was in love with now. And maybe… maybe he could win Red’s affection. Keith himself had given him some pointers.

“Are you sure?”

“Why, Mullet. If I didn’t know you any better, I’d say you’re worried about me!” Lance teased.

“You know I am,” Keith said, no hint of playfulness. He found Lance’s hands and squeezed. “You're good at taking care of others, Lance, but shit at taking care of yourself.”

“Language, Keith!” Lance reprimanded. “Or I'll tell Shiro you used a bad word!”

“Asshole,” Keith sneered.

Lance gasped in fake shock. “I’ll shut your filthy mouth!” he threatened.

“Oh yeah?” Keith crossed his arms in defiance. “You’ll use that soap bar you were talking about before?”

“Don't underestimate the power of good soap!”

“Or what?”

“Or I'll have you bathe in the Station's awful stuff for the rest of your life! No, wait,” Lance leaned forward, sniffing at Keith's neck. “What have you been using? This is actually a nice scent.”

There was barbecue sauce involved; no space french fries. But Keith didn’t smell like lemon or meringue, either; it was more like… sand? Did sand even have a scent?

Lance kept on guessing, and when Keith didn’t answer, he looked at him again.

Keith was red all over: forehead, cheeks, chin and neck, all the way up to where his neck disappeared under his suit.

“What is it?”

“I stopped using those stupid soaps after my first shower here. This is how _I_ smell.”

“Oh.” Lance stumbled back, unsure what to say.

Well that was… useful for trivia night? He had always thought that Keith would smell like nothing up close. Maybe a little bit like… motor oil and repressed rage? Maybe smoke. Not like he’d _ever_ wasted time wondering how Keith smelt when he wasn’t covered in the sweat of a battle. That was all Colrin’s business anyway.

“Lance?” Keith called him.

There was a hint of worry there, 'cause Lance had just brought his right hand to his chest.

“I'm fine,” he lied. Again. He could feel the petals twirling around, light and sharp inside his lungs. “I—”

An arrow hit him in the shoulder.

It took Lance a second to understand what was happening. Then Keith shouted something and he fell back, sliding towards the bee’s abdomen.

Lance couldn’t hear anything above his pain. Just Keith’s yelling something that would have had Shiro scowl in disapproval.

It was chaos, all around him: darts coming at them from all sides, above and below, as the bee kept doing its dutiful work, head still hidden inside the flower.

_Another ambush_ , Lance realized, when his brain came back online. He found himself dangling over a black abyss, his right shoulder on fire as he tried to hold onto the bee sting with his right hand.

“This is not how the rides in the Tunnel of Love usually go!” he shouted over the loud buzzing in his ears.

“Hold on!” Keith shouted back, fighting enemies Lance couldn't see.

Another arrow; another clang of metal against metal. The pollen spread and glowed around them, making them easier targets.

“This is not how they should play Cupid in here!” Lance said. Then he shut up, because the bee did that buzzing thing again and started shaking its bottom, like it was trying to get rid of something.

“Oh,” Lance inhaled. That something was him.

“‘Oh’ what now?” Keith grunted.

Lance had no idea what was going on at the Mullet’s end of the bee, but whatever it was there was a lot of anger involved. He saw one of the Rebels fall from the cluster of flowers, screaming; then Keith bent down to help Lance up.

They took cover just below one of the giant wings.

Keith checked out Lance’s shoulder, where the arrow still was. “Stay still, I have something.” He produced a small device from one of the hidden pockets in his suit. “This is gonna hurt.”

“Oh, this is hurting already, Morgana,” Lance said.

Keith split the arrow’s head, tore Lance’s jacket, and took the shaft out in under two ticks. Lance cursed, loudly.

Keith kept him there, pressing down on his wound with the strange device. “This will do for a while,” Keith said.

Lance could move his shoulder again. “Awesome.”

Somewhere above them, the Rebels were talking in a hurried alien tongue. The bee buzzed as they shifted around.

Lance had an ‘Eureka!’ moment. “I think I just figured out why the Tunnel of Love is working even without the power on,” he informed Keith.

“And this is important now, why?”

Lance was about to answer when another Rebel invited himself on their bee. He came at them with a giant scythe, grunting and growling. He was big, and slow, and Lance could have taken him out with a shot of his blaster, if he had wanted. But that wouldn’t have saved them from the unknown number of Rebels still hiding in the dark. So plan Bee it was.

Regretful for what was about to happen, Lance dived left as he pushed a distracted Keith to the right.

The scythe came down in the empty space where they had been just a second before, lodging itself deep into the bee's thorax.

The buzzing sound changed at once. It shifted into a low, dangerous vibration - and that’s when Lance knew that his theory was right.

He sprang forward and, before Keith had time to react, he plunged them both into the darkness below.

The bees were alive.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith does something unexpected. Lance has no idea what's happening.
> 
> (This is a short one!)

“You remember my jetpack is busted, right?”

Keith seemed pretty calm for someone who was falling to his death. But then again, this was the guy who drove speeders off a cliff without a second thought, so maybe Lance should have guessed there would be no shaking and crying involved.

“No worries, Mullet!” Lance grinned in the face of fear. “I've got everything under control.” Well, more of less. He _suspected_ someone else had everything under control on their behalf.

Any second now someone would come to their rescue.

Any second.

Now…

_Anyone?!_

Lance was about nine point eight meters per square second closer to his death when he heard the most beautiful sound in the whole damn universe. A bee spreading her wings.

“That’s our girl!” Lance rejoiced.

Their love bee was charging towards them at full speed. She was actually flying now, no longer gliding from flower to flower following a pre-programmed pattern. As she flew, she used her six legs to toss away any Rebel stupid enough to get close to her.

Lance noticed there was something around her neck that hadn’t been there before: neon-like alien letters that he wisely chose to translate as 'emergency mode activated'.

“Is this a good moment to bring up that fact that I’m allergic to bee stings?” Keith asked.

Lance shushed him up.

They were still falling when the bee matched her speed and gently grabbed them with her claws. Her forelegs were soft and sticky as they clung to them.

“I guess they do have some safety measures around here after all,” Lance said.

Keith snorted. They climbed back on the bee’s thorax, now paying more attention than ever at not hurting her as they moved.

“Can you take us out?” Lance asked their ride.

The bee’s eyes flashed green in what he chose to take as a positive answer. But before she could do anything, another arrow flew past Lance’s ear. He yelped, suddenly remembering the Hate Cupids still hiding in the dark. “Don’t hurt my BeeBee!” he yelled at them.

“I don't think your BeeBee needs protecting,” Keith told him. And he was right.

When the darts started flying again, BeeBee did something weird with her antennae. Her buzzing became a loud vibration and echoed throughout the cave, making the walls shake until the air was full of dust and debris.

Lance held his breath. He felt Keith push his chest against his back as they hold on tighter to BeeBee’s fuzzy neck. Her body throbbed for a few more seconds; then it was silence again.

All of a sudden, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. No… _lights_ : about a dozen shimmering bodies that came closer and closer, setting the cave alight with their multi-colored gleams.

“That's a cool emergency protocol,” Keith gaped, watching the bees attack their enemies.

“Yeah!” Lance raised his fist in the air. “Nobody puts BeeBee in a corner!”

Behind him, Keith scrunched his nose in confusion, clearly not getting the reference. Lance smiled wider.

With the bees, came more pollen: dots of light that danced around the cave like fireflies. Keith reached out for one. As soon as he touched it, it dissolved like a small firework, leaving behind a yellow-colored dust that stuck to his fingers.

The lights glowed brighter.

It was a very appropriate sight for a Tunnel of Love and, perhaps, in the past some visitors had liked playing along the scenario that the emergency protocol had set up for them: two lovers, almost dying and finding themselves in each other’s arms once again. But now those lights only meant that the Rebels could no longer hide in the shadows.

What followed the bees' arrival was probably one of the most ruthless battles Lance had ever seen. It was enough, in any case, to make him pray to every Lion Goddess out there to never find himself on the wrong end of a bee stinger.

He was glad BeeBee didn’t seem interested in hanging around for the fight: she took off, carrying him and Keith towards a new group of tunnels.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Keith said above all the noise. His hands were around Lance's waist; BeeBee was flying fast.

“Of course it worked!” Lance winked. “I’m good at making things up on the bee!”

“Please stop with the horrible puns already,” Keith begged.

“But Mullet, we are Queen Bees!”

Keith rolled his eyes and punched him on the shoulder.

BeeBee took one last turn left. Without warning, they found themselves above ground again.

They flew above the park for a few minutes, looking for a safe place to land. It wasn’t an easy task, considering that most streets were flooding with panicking guests and the occasional panicking security agent. Lance and Keith shared a worried look: that would take a while to sort out.

BeeBee finally settled for a small square, away from the chaos caused by the blackout but not too far from the House of Mirrors. Lance was petting her on the head and saying thanks when a sudden flap of her wings sent him face first to the ground.

“Quiznak,” he swore, kissing the wet sand.

Keith laughed at him. “I guess you’re not used to being on solid ground anymore, your Majesty.”

“Oh, get off your high bee, Keith!” Lance rolled over to throw daggers at him.

Keith answered with a smug grin and throaty laugh that inspired Lance his revenge. He sprang up, grabbed Keith's leg and made him fall off BeeBee's back and on top of him.

“Ah, that hurt! You—“

“Uhuh,” Lance warned him. “Careful, or I'll have BeeBee sting you where it hurts!”

“Don’t think so,” Keith glanced behind his own shoulder. “She’s gone.”

Surely enough, when Lance followed his gaze, he saw BeeBee taking flight and head back to the tunnels. “Darn,” he lamented. “Guess I’ll have to kick your ass myself then.”

“I guess you’ll have to,” Keith said, gazing down at him.

That was the moment Lance realized something was seriously off.

He should have noticed it before, but they were in what someone else might have called a 'compromising position'. Lance was lying on his back, hands on Keith's hips, and Keith was on top of him, their legs entwined. That wasn't the compromising part, though: the Paladins routinely ended up in way worse Twister scenarios during training. No, what scared Lance now was the tenderness of it all.

Lance was feeling a sense of peace that he had rarely experienced since leaving Earth behind. And _Keith_ was that peace. He was looking at Lance with warmth in his eyes. With dimples in his cheeks and a stupid Hello Kitty band-aid on his forehead. With a smile that Lance had only seen Keith give to—

“— _uys? Guys? ---hear me?”_

A voice from Lance’s communicator. It was faint, and got swallowed by static as soon as Lance heard it. But he knew who it was.

Lance froze and, in that moment of hesitation, a hand found its way to his cheek.

Keith said nothing. He kept still, eyes lost in Lance’s. And yeah, yeah: Lance _knew_ that look. He wished he didn’t.

Keith leaned forward, just the tiniest bit, lips parted and eyes half-lidded. Then he tilted his head in confusion: “Lance?” he looked with uncertainty at his own chest. Lance’s hands were there now. Not pushing, not shoving: just keeping him there. Away.

Keith's heart was beating hard and fast under Lance’s palms _._ Like aftershocks from an earthquake.

“What are you doing?” Lance asked.

He slid from under Keith’s body, crawling backwards on his elbows and feet to get further away. “This is not… that wasn't a...” he stuttered. “What are you doing?” he asked again.

Keith didn’t seem to understand what was wrong. If anything, he looked more confused than Lance felt. He was frowning, eyes dark and unfocused: “But you said…” he tried to explain. “I thought you wanted to—”

“No!” Lance cried. And then, more clearly, because he needed to: “This is not okay.” _That_ was absolutely shitty, actually. Because Lance was many things and did a lot of stupid stuff, but betraying his friends had never been on the plate.

“But you said it was fine,” Keith whispered.

Lance was aghast. “What?! No, I didn't!”

“Oh,” a murmur, barely there.

All color drained from Keith’s face then. Sickly and shivering in the night, he hugged himself, eyes downcast.

Lance had to wonder then, if that wasn’t another side effect of the Juniberry Curse. He wanted to believe – he _knew_ already, in some ways – that that whole clusterfuck wasn’t Keith's fault at all. And he needed to do something about it, before it was too late.

Lance crawled back on his hands and knees, getting closer to Keith but not trusting himself to reach out to him - not yet. “Look, we can't talk about this right now,” he explained. “Pidge and Hunk need our help.”

Keith’s whole body shook with a humorless laugh.

Lance frowned. “Why are you la—“

“The mission comes first,” Keith finally raised his head. “That’s the way it is in the end, right?”

“No!” Lance _was_ an idiot after all. “That’s not what I meant at all!”

This time it was harder to stay away. So he didn't: Lance put his right hand on Keith's shoulder, and Keith's eyes focused on the fingers resting there.

“This has nothing to do with that,” Lance promised.

Keith said nothing at first: he kept staring at Lance’s hands on his shoulder, until he closed his eyes and sighed. “No, you’re right.”

“Keith…” Lance tried.

Keith moved away, leaving Lance’s hand grasping empty air.

“I told you, I’m not great with this kind of things.” Keith swallowed loudly, eyes glistening. “I misunderstood.”

Lance was not even 1% sure what Keith was saying, much less what he was feeling, but he forced himself to nod. Several times. “Yeah, yeah. That’s what happened,” he confirmed.

He had to ignore the problem, for all their sakes. Only for a short while. Even if it hurt.

“We need to get to the House of Mirrors. But we’ll talk about this later. I promise.”

“Yeah,” Keith mumbled. “Sure.”

Three seconds: that's all it took. Keith took a deep breath; and when all the air left his lungs, he squared his shoulders and straightened his back. He opened his eyes again, all traces of doubt and fear gone. Keith was a Blade soldier once again: all menacing and business-like, like the last five minutes of their lives had never happened. Like they had been erased.

That change scared Lance more than he wanted to admit.

“Okay,” Keith said, getting to his feet. “Which way now?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He took a look around the square, until a spark of recognition came to his eyes. Then he started making his way towards one of the narrow side-streets ahead of them, weapon ready.

Lance trailed a few feet behind him, a lump in his throat and razor blades in his chest.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge is a troll.

For the record, Lance was pissed at everyone. At himself, for not knowing how he got into the whole Galaxy Station mess. At Keith, for being Keith. At Colrin, for getting stuck on the wrong side of a wall. At his useless communicator for—

“Lance!” screamed the useless communicator. “Can you hear me?!”

“Pidgeon!” Lance halted his march and dove into the nearest empty alley to take cover: “You’re still there!”

The communicator grunted in a very Pidge-like manner. “Yeah, we're still stuck at the Science Fair.”

“Still shooting!” Hunk's scream came faint but clear through the channel.

“Listen, guys—“

“Pidge,” Keith interrupted. “Stop talking. The Galra are monitoring our channels.”

_Oh, right._ Lance grimaced.

“Yeah, not anymore. We noticed something was wrong when Matt tried calling us,” Pidge said. “I'm using a new encryption now. It's _a lot_ slower than the ones we're used to but it's secure.”

“You sure?” Keith asked.

“Positive,” Pidge confirmed. And Lance could _see_ her rolling her eyes even if there was no video feed. “I'm sending you some schematics with the instructions how to reboot the security system. It might take a while.”

“Copy that,” Lance said, sliding to the ground.

Keith crunched down beside him and looked at his wrist. “Any ideas on how we can avoid another ambush?” he asked Pidge.

“ _Another_?” Hunk's voice piped up, more stressed than ever.

“Is that why you're late?” Pidge asked.

“Are you alright?!”

“Yeah, Hunk. I'm with Keith,” Lance continued. “But we had a ceiling falling on us, a little army of Rebels firing arrows at us, and a giant bee taking us on a joyride. So...”

“Wait,” that was Pidge again. “The bees were still operational?”

There was something like surprise her voice. And then there was Hunk, whispering to her: “Does that mean they came in contact with the Sexy Pollen?”

“The _what_ now?!” Lance screamed.

He must have heard it wrong. There was no way – absolutely no way – Hunk had just brought up another fanfiction trope! Not while Lance was in the middle of the whole Junibaki thing!

“The... uh, Sex Pollen,” Hunk said.

But yep: that was Lance’s life now. A real, fictional mess!

“It’s kind of a spore,” Hunk cringed, and Lance cringed with him.

“It's a bioluminescent artificial drug, actually,” Pidge cut in. “It works better in its pollen-like state. Which is why people here use bees in their Tunnels of Love, I suppose.” A faint tapping noise came through the open channel. “Anyway, the spores kind of make people feel... romantically inclined.”

Lance counted to three. Or maybe to one. He couldn't really count right now. He just held up a lot of fingers while he processed the whole thing: “Romantically inclin—you mean _horny_?”

“She means horny,” Hunk confirmed with was sounded like a giggle.

Lance gaped at the both of them. _The quiznaking trolls!_

Beside him, Keith reddened and then paled again, looking away and to the ground.

“You two sent us in there knowing that?!” Lance glared at his stupid communicator device. It was a good thing Team Punk wasn’t there in the alley with him: he would have throttled them for real this time.

“There's a blackout!” Pidge defended herself. “I thought the Tunnel of Love would be out of order.”

“It wasn’t: the bees are real!” Lance growled. “And the whole cave would have been full of pollen anyway!”

“Well,” an awkward pause. “I honestly believed there would be no harm done.”

Lance squinted: Pidge had used her 'poker face' voice. The one she used when she was being a sarcastic little shit.

Keith must have noticed it too, because he buried his face in his hands: whether he felt ashamed or murderous (or maybe _both_ ) Lance couldn’t tell – Pidge was eliciting a lot of emotional responses right now.

The little gremlin probably had had a good laugh, thinking about Lance riding a bee all alone, while Keith and Colrin got all PDA in front of him. Except Colrin wasn't there anymore and Lance had gotten stuck with a lovesick Keith and then with a horny Keith and—

“ _Ugh_ ,” Lance resisted the urge to curse. “Right, no harm done...” he pinched the bridge of his nose.

Keith came up for breathing then: “The effects of the drugs should fade soon anyway, right?”

He still avoided looking at Lance.

“Oh yeah,” Pidge said. “That stuff is totally temporary. They just use it to let the guests have a memorable joyride.”

“Ow, _gross_ ,” Hunk complained.

Lance had to agree with him there. Then the communicator, merciful device that it was, beeped loudly.

“Schematics received,” Lance said.

“Everything clear?” Pidge asked.

“It should all be pretty straightforward,” Hunk butted in again.

Lance flipped through the drawings. They were easy enough to understand: much simpler than the old instruction manuals of Lance’s cheap furniture back on Earth. All it would take to reboot the core system was pushing a couple of buttons and pull a lever, and then Team Voltron would take control of the Station.

_Take that, Sanrin!_

“Thanks guys: we’re going in,” Lance said.

After a brief goodbye, he and Keith peeked around the corner, facing the House of Mirrors with their weapons drawn.

Lance knew the final act had started because Keith activated his Blade mask again. He wondered if they'd find Colrin already inside the House, waiting for them. He never tried contacting them again after that first time.

“Do you want to sit this one out?” Keith asked.

Lance frowned at him, insulted. “What? No! Why should I?”

Keith stared at him like the answer should have been obvious: “The flimsy civilian clothes?”

“Oh.” _Right_. Lance looked down at himself. “I’ll just,... stay behind you or something.”

“Lance…”

“Hey! The armor doesn’t make the Paladin!” Lance reminded him. “The bayard does!” he activated his weapon, swinging around his Altean broadsword.

“Fine,” Keith gave in. “Let’s go.”

“No, wait,” Lance grabbed him by the arm before he could step out of the alley, knives blazing. “We can’t use the front door.”

The Rebels and their Galra allies already knew of their plan to reboot the core system. Bursting into the House of Mirrors without a strategy would get them killed for sure. They'd have to be smart about this, especially considering they were both already wounded.

He told Keith so, and received a grunt in return.

“Fine, you got a better idea?”

Lance did.

“This way.” He guided Keith away from the main entrance and towards the east side of the building. There was a small balcony there, on the second floor, hidden by half dead vines and old wooden planks. Lance and the mice had eaten their cheese ice cream there, when they came to the Station with Allura.

They lifted themselves up and broke in through a French window, the darkness swallowing them whole. Keith activated his mask and scanned the dusty halls of the House of Mirrors.

“You've never been here before?” Lance asked.

Keith's helmet said no. “I don't like this kind of stuff.”

“Enchanted mirrors?”

“Ghost houses.”

Lance could not blame him for that. Plus, if the Earth versions of the House of Mirrors were weird enough, this one, on the Station, could get downright creepy.

First of all, it was built like a maze, and not a standard one. The walls and ceilings moved all the time in there, and the House wouldn't let you find the exit until you faced something about yourself.

Under normal circumstances, the mode was set on 'Nice' and the mirrors helped the guests revisit their favorite memories or see the stuff they loved the most. Sometimes you were shown what you longed for, as in a dream or a fantasy (a nice, PG-rated one, of course!); other times you became the victim of a prank, like when Lance saw himself with that crown of dead leaves.

Uh, _anyway_ : when Lance entered the House with Keith the circumstances were anything but normal. They had to hope that the Rebels hadn’t bothered to set the mode to 'Nasty' yet: the House of Mirrors could convince you that its illusions were real, and Lance shivered at the thought of some poor idiot getting lost in there.

“That way,” he said, reading the schematics Pidge had sent them.

Keith checked the halls and gave him the all clear.

They hurried along the next corridor, staying as close as possible, afraid of being separated by a sliding wall or a stray window.

Sometimes the House tried to lure them away from its center, showing them visions of Varadero Beach, a shack in the desert, and their friends in pristine Garrison uniforms. Keith kept going without sparing any of those illusions a second glance. The only time he reacted was when a young Krolia appeared in front of them, cradling a purple-skinned baby in her arms. Keith threw a spare dagger at her.

Lance guessed there were _a lot_ of still unresolved issues there.

As Keith went to retrieve his weapon from the broken mirror, a wall slit shut behind them.

“Quiznak!”

The loud clang made Lance startle in panic. He jumped forward, where Keith was looking around, blade drawn, to make sure they were still alone. Lance doubted that would last for long: the House was starting to forget all about playing nice.

When they reached the next flight of stairs, Lance decided he couldn't take all that tension anymore. He needed a distraction; so he made one up.

“Hey, Keith...” he called, pretending to count on his fingers. “How may Rebels do you think attacked us before?”

“I counted thirteen in the Tunnel. Why?”

“That's way more than Sanrin said there were the day we arrived at the Station,” Lance realized. “Do you think they've been hiding on the Station for long? Getting familiar with the place before starting their takeover...?”

They must have. One doesn’t simply walk into a Galaxy Station and hope for the best.

“Man, local security here sure is sloppy,” Lance complained, giving a slap to the banister.

Keith stopped walking.

Lance almost stumbled down the steps. “Mullet...?” he called, a bit worried.

Keith hung his head and lowered his weapon, arms rigid at his sides. “I told Kolivan that sending me on this mission was a bad idea,” he revealed.

“Well, he’s had worse ideas before…”

Keith didn’t turn around. “Maybe, but I was right.”

“Why?”

“Nothing good happened since we came here.”

Okay. That hurt. That _hurt a lot_.

Lance looked away. “That's not true,” he protested.

Keith didn’t hear him; or maybe he didn’t care enough to answer. When he raised his head again, the expressionless eyes of a Blade mask were studying him.

Lance shivered, and the petals twirled inside his lungs. “That’s not true,” he insisted. A lot of awesome stuff had happened since they came to the Station; maybe not the Juniberry thing, and maybe not that, uh, awkward Sexy Pollen stuff, but…

“We don't have time for this,” Keith said. He began walking up the steps once again.

Lance almost jumped at his throat because of that; but before he could say anything, the whole House started shaking.

There was a shriek, and a string of curses, and the walls started doing all kinds of crazy stuff. Shattered windows; cracked pillars; upside-down paintings.

When Lance sprang forward, it was already too late: a glass panel slid down from the ceiling, lodging itself in empty space between him and Keith - right in the middle of the staircase.

“No!” Keith banged on the glass; first with his bare fists, then with his luxite blade, trying to make it past the barrier.

The glass didn’t break. The House did.

The staircase shifter under their feet: one part surged upwards, lining up to the above hallway; the other lost its steps and turned into a slide.

Keith was dragged backwards by an unseen force, while Lance fell down a black void. They screamed each other’s names and, for a while, the echoes of their own voices were the only things they could hold on to.

When the House finally stopped moving, Lance found himself alone, a dozen hostile reflections staring down at him.

 

\---

 

Simple check.

  * _Neck_ : not broken.
  * _Right shoulder_ : burning.
  * _Upper and lower extremities_ : sore.
  * _His lovely Cuban behind_ : hurting like a motherquiznaker.



Lance got up, very slowly and very painfully, and tried to understand where the heck the House had thrown him. Nowhere nice, that was for sure. There were mirrors _everywhere_ : on his right, on his left, on the ceiling and under his feet.

The broken shards lodged in his shoes confirmed that yes, he had fallen from a very high height - at least a couple of floors, by the looks of it.

The thought made him dizzy, and the dizziness made him lurch: a bit of bile, a lot of petals. No blood this time, but the sooner he got back to Red to court him, the better. It was starting to get a little bit difficult to breathe, and all the other Lances around him were making things worse with all their sneering.

_Dicks._

Lance cleaned his mouth with the back of his hand and hoped Keith was having a better time than he was. “Okay, let’s get out of this place.”

He re-activated his wrist device. The comms were blocked, but everything else still seemed to work. Lance waited until the holographic map updated itself and got his bayard ready.

Maze or no maze, Pidge's schematics would tell him where he needed to go. And where he needed to go wasn’t a very safe place. So Lance came up with a very Keith plan: shot first, ask questions never.

He broke all the mirrors before the illusions could get to him and mess with his head. Allura. Coran. Pidge. Hunk. Shiro, again and again - even his Abuela with her garlic knots. He shot them all, without a second thought, not standing by to watch as their images shattered and the House crumbled around him.

Was it madness? Yes, but it was also a good plan.

Lance made it past two flights of stairs before something managed to take him by surprise. He took the wrong turn left, and when he tried to go back, he found _her_ waiting for him.

His mother was wearing her favorite apron and smiling her warmest smile. Her fingers were stained with chocolate and butter, and there was flour in her air. Lance hesitated, just for a second: and that was enough.

She lured him in. Closer and closer, without even having to say anything.

He reached out for her, spellbound, until their fingers touched through the glass. Lance felt it then: a familiar pain in his wrists. Ice spread through his whole body in waves. And then there was that whisper, becoming louder and louder as he started paying attention to it.

_You will never be good enough._

Lance jumped back, trying to escape that horrible nightmare, but his fingers wouldn't come free. He watched in horror as they fused with the mirror in front of him: a glue-like substance stretching between illusion and reality, binding them forever.

Lance screamed, his heart beating furiously inside his chest. Trying to melt the ice.

NotMother smiled at him again: a smug tilt of her lips, filled with sorrow and disdain. _I knew you would disappoint us._

She was close; too close. Lance could feel her arms enveloping him in an unwanted hug, crushing everything that made him himself.

And then Red roared in the distance.

_You're not the only one hurting_ , a memory echoed in Lance’s head. _We've gotta fix it._

Suddenly, his bayard was in his left hand.

The Altean broadsword cut through the mirror glass like it was paper. The image of NotMother cracked and split into five shards, then a hundred, and even more. She lost her strength and let go of Lance, falling backwards into the searing white pain of the illusion.

She clawed at him with her sharp nails, but she could no longer break the barrier between their worlds. Lance hit the mirror again, and NotMother snarled one last time with her hundred mouths, knowing she had failed. She disappeared with a shriek that sent Lance flying backwards, a rain of glass falling all around him.

He didn’t hit the ground. Two strong hands caught him and helped him sit on the floor, careful as they tested his wounds.

“Are you alright?”

In a daze, Lance raised his injured hand. He moved his fingers, opening and then folding them again several times.

The remains of the glass-like substance that NotMother had used to trap him detached from his skin and turned into silvery dust.  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Lance said, glancing up. “Thanks, man.”

Colrin smiled at him. He had his mask off, and his face was covered in scratches and soot-like dirt. Other than that, and a few rips here and there in his suit, he seemed fine.

“I live to serve.”

Colrin helped Lance on his feet again, careful to not let go of him until he was sure he could stand on his own. “Keith?” he asked in the end.

Lance massaged his bad shoulder. “We got separated about... half a varga ago?” Yeah, that sounded about right. “I think the House brought him closer to the center the last time it shifted.”

Colrin took the situation in. “Is he injured?”

“Grazed head,” Lance said. “He’ll live.”

Colrin nodded. “I was lucky to find you: I've been flying blind for a while in here.”

“Yeah, the House is not being very helpful.”

“Do you have a map?”

Lance tapped at his wrist device. “Yup.”

“Take the lead then,” Colrin said. “I'll clear the way.”

He raised his Chakrams with a smug grin. Lance smiled back.

 

\---

 

Navigating the maze with Colrin turned out to be a fun experience. An explosive one, actually.

As Lance walked past the mirrors, it was like they shattered on their own accord, showering him in fragments that disappeared as soon as they made contact with his skin.

Colrin’s twin chakrams flew high and fast, cutting through the glass before new illusions could form. Where they couldn't reach, Lance shot with his blaster, making sure the path before them was clear before making their way to the upper floors.

They found Keith about fifteen minutes later, at the top of a staircase.

He was fighting against two Rebels and a nasty-looking Galra soldier. His helmet was broken and glitching, and when Keith was not charging forward, he was holding his right side, dark blood spilling through his fingers.

“Keith!” Lance sprinted forward, shooting like crazy.

As the first Rebel fell, his allies turned towards the bottom of the stairs, spotting Lance and Colrin coming at them. They shouted something gross, but didn’t have time to retaliate: Colrin was already on them.

He gutted the Galra General with a swipe of his chakrams and hit his companion in the neck as he tried to escape. It wasn't a bloodless fight. The Blades tended to be a lot rougher than the average Paladin during battle.

Still breathing heavily, Keith grinned wide and open as they reunited at the top of the staircase. “Thanks.”

Lance scratched his nose, all smug and proud. “Oh, you know. Someone's gotta save your—“

He was cut off by Colrin moving past him and basically _smashing_ into Keith.

The Blade framed Keith's face in his hands, and moved his eyes everywhere on his boyfriend’s body: arms, torso, legs, back. He deactivated his Mask and, after a moment of hesitation, he gave an affectionate flick at the Hello Kitty’s bandage on Keith’s forehead, sticking it back in place with careful fingers.

Keith stood still for a second, holding his gaze. Then he let out an amused chortle and wrapped his arms around Colrin’s neck.

A breath later, Colrin took the hint. He bent down and kissed Keith square on the lips. “Hi,” he whispered in a husky voice. His hands found Keith's palms and squeezed.

“Hey,” Keith called back, bringing their foreheads together.

The Awkward (™) reigned supreme.

Lance looked away, cheeks burning and nose twitching. He guessed that the Sex Pollen had stopped affecting Keith at some point - or that maybe it was still working but, you know, in a _different_ way. The right one. For the right person.

Lance coughed, trying to escape his own embarrassment. “Shall we go?” he asked his shoes.

“Yeah.”

Keith sighed in disappointment, but a breath later he was already back in Soldier-mode.

“I almost made it to the server room before they ambushed me,” he nodded towards the corridor on their right. There were no mirrors there: only a mountain of dusty carpets and damaged paintings that took up most of the walls.

Lance reminded himself that he was a Professional Paladin and readied his bayard. “I'll be rearguard,” he said.

They started walking towards the end of the dark corridor.

The House was the horror movies kind of quiet and, as they moved, Lance's eyes somehow kept finding their way to Keith's fingers, now entwined with Colrin's. They were afraid of being separated again, Lance guessed.

Given how (literally) butthurt he got the last time the House shifted, he understood the sentiment. He tried to never fall behind more than a couple of steps.

They didn't run into any Rebels or evil reflections of any kind. Lance almost convinced himself they would get into the server room without any further delays when Colrin suddenly stopped walking.

“Oh, no,” he let go of Keith’s hand and turned around to warn Lance of something, but it was already too late.

A heavy weight slammed into his side and tackled him to the ground.

“Lance!” Keith and Colrin yelled in unison.

Lance fought back. He kicked and screamed, scratched and elbowed until every muscle of his body hurt and his mouth tasted like blood.

His assailant just held him tighter, arms encircling his neck and torso until Lance finally noticed that something was off. The stranger wasn’t actively trying to hurt him; if anything, he was being careful not to touch his right shoulder. Like he knew about his wound.

Moreover, something else was familiar. That grip. Lance had been held like that before, at the Garrison, and even more recently, during Paladin training and on the sixth floor of the Haunted House.

Lance’s body went limp. “...Shiro?” he tried to make sense of things. But there was no way the other Paladin was there. ...Was there?

The arms holding him lost some of their strength, but still wouldn’t let him up from the floor. Instead, they became more determined to make him keep his head down.

Lance looked at Colrin and Keith, both frozen in a stunned silence.

When Lance finally rolled around to look at his attacker, it wasn’t Shiro who stared down at him with urgency in his eyes.

“Lance, you have to snap out of it,” Keith said.

The second Lance did, he found himself right in the middle of a shooting war.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance really likes Colrin. That might be a problem.

It was like level 7 of the Killbot Phantasm II remake, a piece-of-youknowwhat videogame that Lance used to play with his niece.

You entered the room and suddenly bullets were flying from all directions. So you had to hide, right? And whatever you did, you ended up stuck in a corner, with no ammo, while a little army of dark elves kept trying to kill you. And good luck escaping from the Evil Lord’s Dungeon! You would need at least three lives and seven hours of co-up to get out of there.

Lance _always_ managed to finish the game short of losing his last life, just to see his niece scold him and say _she_ was the one who got them all the best prizes. This time, though, there were no prizes, and they might die for real.

The moment Keith broke him free from the Mirror Dream, one of the Galra generals (a real one this time) took advantage of Lance’s confusion and shot him in the leg. He was bleeding, bad, and he was having a little trouble processing the string of curses that Keith was letting out.

Between a grunt and a limp, the two of them managed to find cover behind a group of old paintings. Someone had lined them up to fill the gaps between a row of pillars. _A barricade_ , Lance’s brain computed: they were huddling behind a barricade.

“Stay still.”

Keith cleaned up the blood from Lance’s left calf as best as he could and told him to put pressure on the wound. Then he patted down his Marmorite suit, looking for something in one of its hidden pockets.

“Come on, come on, where is it...”

Lance’s vision started getting a bit watery. Keith cursed and swatted his hands away. A second later, he pressed something against Lance’s leg, making him scream in pain.

Keith let out a relieved sigh. “That means it’s working.”

Lance cursed. His leg hurt worse than before, but he wasn’t bleeding anymore, and he could finally hear himself think again. He pushed himself back against the barricade and took a look around, trying to get up to speed with how quiznaked they were.

From what he remembered from the schematics Pidge had sent them, the access to the Station's core server had to be hidden in the center of the room, a square area delimited by three flights of stairs and a blind wall on the remaining side.

Lance took a quick peek over the barricade. There were hundreds shards of mirror glass not too far from the staircase on the left. That meant two things. One: Lance had entered the room from there, following his Mirror Dream (aka Fake Colrin-and-Keith) and walking right into its trap. Two: the real Keith had completely exposed himself to enemy fire in order to save him.

“Shit.” Lance swore again. He was getting the Mullet so many dragon hearts when they got out of there! And then he was gonna smash them against his skull for risking his stupid life for him.

Keith took point and shoot at the Rebels with a small blaster. Lance recognized the weapon: it was the same that the Station security agents used. Three of them were trading hurried looks behind the barricade; one was doing some good sniper work from the top of a pillar; and another was...

“Sanrin?!” Lance sat up with a shriek when he spotted the Chief of Security crouched down behind one of the paintings. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“My job,” Sanrin answered, giving Lance an impressive 'are-you-an-idiot?' glance.

“He got me out of a Mirror Dream,” Keith confirmed. He finished taping some sort of adhesive tape around Lance’s calf. The thing turned red with blood, but at least the pain stopped bothering him.

Sanrin took Lance's relief as a permission to get closer. “I've been here all day with some of my men. The House isn't letting us in the Control Room.”

“Why?” Lance asked. And right after: “The Rebels have already hacked it, haven’t they?”

Sanrin gritted his teeth. From up close, they looked even sharper than Lance remembered. “Those dirtbags got into the system ages ago. Once I get my claws on the mole who did this, I'm booking them a one-way-ticket for the Roller Coaster.”

Lance believed him. He shivered, a cold vibration spreading through his body.

Keith studied him. “Can you fight?”

Lance nodded without really putting any thought into it. His leg might become a problem at some point, but if he didn’t move too quickly he thought he could manage. He told Keith so and looked over the barricade.

He had to give the House some credit: its illusions didn’t disappear easily.

The shards of glass on the floor belonging to his original Dream had come together to form a new Mirror; one that, Lance suspected, only he could see. Fake-Keith and Fake-Colrin were still there, alternating between kissing and sneering at him as the fight raged on around them.

Lance forced himself to look away. That’s when he spotted the trapdoor in the center of the room: the entrance to the Control Room, currently guarded by a Galra and two Rebels huddled behind a huge shield.

Lance slid down on the floor. “Okay, we need a plan,” he stated the obvious.

Sanrin shoot at something above their heads. “I'm so glad my son is a fan of such an eloquent strategist,” he deadpanned.

Lance was tempted to give him the middle finger. He showed him his pinkie instead.

“I can clear our right side,” Keith cut in, before Lance could make things worse. “I can take the Rebels out while someone slithers in through the trapdoor.”

Sanrin shook his head. “No, you're the fastest one here, kid. You get in; Ragar and I will cover you,” he tilted his head towards an alien to his left, who nodded in agreement. Then he looked down at Lance. “This one stays here, he's too sick to watch your back.”

“I’m not sick!” Lance sprang up, putting weight on his injured leg to prove his point.

Keith dragged him down. Lance was quick to take the hint; he covered his ears, just moments before a laser beam shot past his head.

“I'm not sick!” he insisted. “I'm just wounded!”

Sanrin’s reptilian tail swayed to show his doubts. “So you weren't puking up blood when Keith found you, uh?”

Lance paled. “What….?” He brought his hands to his throat. His skin felt hot and feverish there, and the taste of blood made a sudden comeback. “What are you talking about?” he looked at Keith for help. “Mullet…?”

Keith’s first instinct was to look away from him. Then he raised his head again and bit his lower lip. “When you came in, following your Mirror Dream, you were talking to someone,” he said. “Every couple of steps you stopped and coughed up blood.”

“What?” Lance didn’t remember any of that.

Keith frowned. “Back at the beach, when I asked you if you were sick, you said it wasn't anything serious.” He found Lance’s arm and squeezed, hard. “You lied to me.”

“I didn’t,” Lance held Keith’s gaze, swallowing blood and guilt. He couldn’t take the tone of betrayal in his voice. “At least I... I’ll be fine, I swear.”

He just needed to go back to Red.

“You won't be fine unless we stop those invaders,” Sanrin said.

“Then let me stop them instead of wasting time talking!” At these words, Lance’s bayard turned into a sniper rifle. It clicked.

Sanrin lowered his tail: “Fine.” He turned towards Keith again, showing him something over the barricade: “See that red circle, around the trap door? That’s the safety zone: if you make it in there, the House won’t try to stop you from getting in.”

“Seems easy enough,” Keith said.

“Yeah, it is,” Lance interjected. “If you take out the three bad guys already inside the circle _and_ the other three million jerks firing at us from all sides.”

Sanrin downright ignored him. “You know how to reboot the system once you get in there?”

Keith got his luxite blade ready. “Yeah, I can do it.”

“Alright then.” Sanrin took another shot, taking out the nearest Rebel. “Down to two jerks inside the circle. Another three millions to go.”

Lance gaped at him.

“Get ready to razzle dazzle the crowd, Loverboy. We're gonna need a lot of fireworks now.” Sanrin winked. _Winked!_

And okay, okay: maybe the dude wasn't _that_ bad after all. He knew his Paladin Lore, so there might be some hope for him.

Lance forced himself out of his stupor and got ready to help Sanrin and Ragar with some covering fire.

At the count of three, Keith jumped over the barricade.

 

\---

 

You know those moments? The ones where everything seems to happen in slow motion? You stand there, frozen, and watch everything from afar like you’re no longer in control of your body. But _you are_ in control: you can see everything and hear every sound. And when you finally touch something, the world speeds up again, just a little. Just enough to remind you that you’re real.

The problem is not your body: it’s your mind. Your thoughts are coming so fast that you can’t keep up with them.

Keith had always been that kind of fast.

_Over the barricade and in the center of the room in less than two seconds._ Keith managed to bring down the Galra and the Rebel fighter waiting for him there with a single flash of his luxite blade. He was only a couple of feet away from entering the safety zone when the House shifted again.

It was a subtle change this time: the walls didn’t move to form new rooms, nor did glass panels fall from the ceiling. Instead, the floor started stirring under their feet. It was nothing anyone would really pay attention to, in the chaos of the battle - but it was enough.

Keith fell.

Lance didn’t let himself stay frozen for long. He ignored Sanrin’s warning to stay put and left their side of the barricade without a second thought, jumping into the fray. The Altean broadsword, he learned, made a pretty good shield against arrows and laser guns.

Sadly, he didn’t have the time to appreciate his newfound knowledge: he and Keith were basically sitting ducks now. Well, _laying_ ducks in Keith’s case; the Rebels had knocked him down pretty hard.

“Those assholes like playing Cupid too much,” Lance quipped.

Somehow, Keith managed to glare at him through his mask. “What are you doing, you idiot…?”

“Saving your bacon, as usual,” Lance replied. His hands moved careful and fast along Keith’s torso.

Ah, right - small but relevant detail: there was an arrow sticking out of Keith’s chest. Luckily, the bodysuit had taken most of the damage, stopping the dart before it could pierce through the flesh. Lance took the head out with no trouble

“No need for a band-aid this time, Mullet!” he announced.

Keith groaned in return.

Lance flinched. Not at the ungratefulness, but at the sudden pain shooting through his left leg. He might have overdone it a little when he rushed to Keith’s side. But, whatever: it was not like he could stop now.

Sanrin and his men were doing a remarkable job at covering their assess, but the Rebels never seemed to run out of arrows. And too many laser blasts had already flown past Lance’s head, making tears in his jacket. They needed to hurry to the Safe Zone.

“Okay, Mullet. Work with me there…” Lance got his arm around Keith’s waist and got ready to lift him up. “One, two...”

On three, several things happened at once.

A Galra commander came out of the dark, one sword in each hand; Sanrin screamed, telling them to get out of the line of fire; and Keith’s knees gave out, sending them both to the floor.

Lance's bayard changed from sword to blaster as he fell. He took aim at the Galra, but he couldn't pull the trigger. The Mirror – the one that had lured him there – moved by its own accord and shielded the Galra from view. The gloating reflection of Fake-Colrin-and-Keith was all Lance could see now.

“ _Shit_.”

A stray enemy dagger grazed Lance’s cheek, and the real Keith yelled something from the floor. A yelp of pain, or maybe a scream of rage. Lance just hoped that that thing hadn’t been poisoned. He already had plenty on his plate right now.

He raised his bayard, trying to guess where he should shoot the Mirror - and if the Galra was still behind it. In the end, he aimed for the space where Fake-Keith's forehead was resting on Fake-Colrin's shoulder.

The fun thing was, he didn’t even need to pull the trigger. The moment his finger rested on it, the Mirror shattered. A chakram burst through its surface, sending shards of glass flying all over the room.

“Colrin!” Lance screamed, lowering his blaster.

Colrin (the real, flesh-and-bones one!) had come out of nowhere. He ran past the lingering dust of his mirror image, and took the Galra commander out with one last move.

Lance breathed in relief and took his index finger off the trigger. When turned to check on Keith, and noticed that (surprise!) he was scowling.

“What?” Lance asked, baffled.

“Move, you idiots!” Sanrin screamed from a few feet behind them.

Another arrow came out of the dark, and Lance hurried to help Keith up again, left calf on fire. They limped towards the trapdoor, and this time the House couldn't stop them: they had made it past the red circle and to the Safe Zone.

That only left the Rebels.

Sanrin and his men were ready to deal with them, and when the last Cupids came out of the shadows, they threw some explosive charges into the mix.

Lance and Keith got hit by debris as the battle raged on around them. Covered in dust, they somehow managed to open the hatch to the Control Room. A dark tunnel was waiting to lead them into the belly of the building.

“I’ve got this,” Keith adjusted his mask and lowered himself down the passage, luxite blade in his hand.

Lance gave one last look at the room before following him. Sanrin and his men had forfeited the protection of the barricade and were now fighting the remaining Rebels at a very shorter rage. Colrin was in there too, his chakrams cutting down the enemies shooting at them from the upper floors with the help of some covering fire.

Lance coughed, his body hurting all over as he started climbing down the ladder. The air was thinner there, and by the time they made it all the way to the end, he felt like he was going to pass out at any second.

Keith didn't have any trouble telling him he looked like shit. “You should stay here.”

“What? No, no, no, no!” Lance swatted away Keith's worried hands. “I'm not letting you take all the glory.”

Months before, when he and the other Paladins had just left Earth, Lance might have meant those words. By now it was clear that he was joking - teasing even - to let Keith know he could go on with the mission.

“Plus, you’re the one who got knocked out up there!” Lance insisted.

Keith sighed. Lance could tell that his trademark frown was still on, behind his mask. “Fine,” he finally agreed. He acted more careful than usual when he took point. “Let's stay close. There could be more Rebels in here.”

There was little to no light in the Control Room. Keith led the way, his helmet scanning the dungeon/room/hallway for any sign of hostile activity. Lance’s hand brushed against the wall as they advanced in the dark, following the beeps and rustles coming from Pidge's map.

When they reached the end of the corridor, a familiar sound made them halt their march. The snickering caricature of Pidge appeared on the holo screen of Lance’s arm device. It was grinning, holding a green arrow that pointed at something on the wall, about one foot above the ground. They shared a meaningful look before Keith did another scan and crouched down.

Holo!Pidge disappeared in a flash of blinding light.

Lance recoiled as his eyes adjusted to the newly found brightness.

The Control Room was smaller than he had thought. No computers, no screens, no techno stuff at all: it was mostly cabinet files, and the occasional bookshelf and dead plant.

“They really don't use this place much,” he muttered, fingers marking the thick veil of dust covering some old safety manuals.

Keith took off his helmet again. “There,” he spotted something on the other end of the room. “That's a control panel.”

He jogged towards a small standing desk.

When Lance got closer, he noticed there were fresh hand prints all over it: the only indication someone had been there recently. The Rebels, most likely.

_Press a button, pull a lever_. The moment Keith touched the console, their communicators sprang to life. Pidge's voice rang out from some hidden speakers in the House. “Glad you made it,” she said.

The wall in front of them opened to show a small screen; and, from inside the screen, a gremlin face grinned down at them. In the background, Lance could see Hunk shooting at something – a Rebel? A Galra? Anyway, Pidge didn't seem too worried about that. She had her headset on and a new computer in her lap. “Ready to get the Station back?”

It was meant to be a rhetorical question, but in the heat of the moment she probably forgot how _technically unskilled_ he and Keith were, compared to her.

She managed to guide them through most the whole rebooting operation, but only gained a desperate groan from Keith when she told him he had to manually input a long string of code in their control panel.

“Try again,” she said, vaguely amused.

Keith tried to avoid another misspelling. No luck. The system shut him off for the fourth time. He cursed. “Why are there so many different brackets...”

“Let me do it,” Lance limped to his side.

Keith gave him an angry look: “I'm not—“

“Holding your chest because it's hurting like hell and distracting you from doing what you have to do?” Lance asked. “Come on, don't be stubborn.”

This time Pidge leaned forward, worried. “What's wrong with _Keith's_ chest?”

“Arrow,” Lance and Keith answered in unison.

“He'll live,” Lance reassured Pidge with a quick glance. “Come on, Mullet. Let the professional do the work!”

Keith scratched his forehead, where the Hello Kitty band-aid was. “The professional…?” His voice was all doubt, but he still stepped aside.

“Yup!” Lance did his best Yupper impression and stretched his fingers. “You have any idea how many strings of code I've copied without anyone noticing? Frankly, it's embarrassing for the Garrison!”

Pidge snorted. Then she blinked, hard. “Wait,” she called. “Is that how you got a better grade than Hunk in Professor Montgomery's A.I. Class?!”

_Nope, that was all me,_ Lance thought. He liked chatting up the artificial intelligence. “Not telling,” he said.

Pidge didn’t let it go. “Come on, man!”

Lance wouldn’t budge. Even when Hunk started pestering him, he wouldn't spill. And in the end he just… kind of lost it. “Are we rebooting this thing or what?!” he yelled.

Silence.

Pidge showed him the code again.

Keith was right: there were lots of {, (, ] and other symbols that got tricky at some point. The pain in his chest and lower leg actually helped Lance stay focused while he worked, but it took him a while to reach the end of the string.

Keith stood behind him, ready to fence off anyone who tried to stop them from getting the Station back. Strangely enough, though, none of the Rebels made it to the Control Room.

“Sanrin must be handling himself well up there.”

The moment Lance said that, there was an explosion on the upper floors. The whole room shook for a tick, dust flying around.

He and Keith stared at the ceiling for a good five seconds. Even Pidge noticed something was wrong, because when Lance glanced at the monitor, she was standing very still. Finally, they heard some noise again: blasters, thuds, and the occasional verbal threat.

Lance got back to the keyboard. “I hope Colrin's alright,” he muttered under his breath.

Beside him Keith stilled and gave him a weird look. He seemed about to tell him something when Pidge let out a cheering sound. She reached for her laptop and started working on it like crazy.

“I'm in! I'm in!” she boasted.

The lights went out.

This time, the darkness only lasted for a couple of seconds. Then, a “The good guys are back in control of Galaxy Station 87!” exploded throughout the park.

Later, Pidge would tell Lance how their tiny reboot saved the day, activating the security system and helping Sanrin sniff out the rest of the Rebels still hiding on the Station. Right then, though, Lance came THIS CLOSE to wetting his pants.

In the second it took for the lights to come back, something came out of the shadows, made it past Keith, and got something around Lance’s shoulders.

Lance shrieked so hard, he was sure he burst at least one of his own eardrums.

Keith, ever the more murderous one, turned around with a furious look. He almost cut off the head of their assailant before he recognized him. “What the hell, Sanrin!” he yelled. His luxite blade stopped a breath away from the alien’s neck.

Sanrin let out a barking laughter, shrugging off the attempted murder. He drew Lance even closer to him and trapped him in an unwanted hug with one of his tentacle arms. Lance felt his clammy suckers press against his clothes and shivered in disgust. His poor jacket had died so many times that day! :(

“Where the heck did you come from?”

Sanrin nodded towards a door that definitely hadn’t been there before - the main entrance to the Control Room, in fact. The passage, he revealed, had started working again when the security system got rebooted. He actually thanked them for that.

“Yeah, yeah,” Lance rolled his now stiff shoulder. He was still a little short of breath. “We're Paladins of Voltron after all.”

“And a trained Blade,” Sanrin conceded. He got in front of Keith, hands on his waist, and looked him up and down. “Kolivan told me you were good,” he said with a clear tone of approval.

Keith and Lance took a second to connect all the dots.

“You know Kolivan?” they asked.

Sanrin stared at them in confusion. “You really don't know?”

He looked like someone who suspected they were being pranked. When he realized that Lance and Keith really had no idea what he was talking about, he started cracking up again. This time it was an ugly howl. “I can't believe Kolivan didn't tell you!”

Yeah. He definitely was making fun of them.

At this point, Sanrin had tears in his eyes, and Lance was more than okay to give Keith the green light on that aborted assassination attempt. Nevertheless they endured, sharing their misery with an equally disgruntled Pidge.

Sanrin enjoyed their cluelessness for a good couple of minutes before he had the grace to explain something to them. Even then, he didn’t use his words. Instead, he took a small dagger out of his utility belt and dangled it in front of them. The little weapon didn't look like anything special... until Sanrin tightened his grip around the hilt and activated it.

“You're a Blade?!” Lance and Keith gasped.

Sanrin laughed. “Many of the security agents on the Station are with the Blade of Marmora,” he said. He waved his crescent-moon shaped sword in the air. “And most of the park personnel have some ties to the Voltron Alliance.”

“Wait a second,” Hunk made a sudden appearance on the screen, shoving poor Pidge’s head under his armpit. “You mean the Blades _own_ this place?”

Sanrin didn't bother to hide it anymore. “We do,” he said, like it was no big deal.

Lance's jaw fell to the floor. He was pretty sure Keith's was right there with it.

Pidge let out a growl and freed himself from her Hunk-shaped cage. “Well, that explains a lot,” she grumbled. “That's why Kolivan agreed to us bringing the Galra generals on the Station, right? He never trusted those Rebels in the first place.”

Lance really, really tried not to take offense at that. No success. “A warning would have been nice!” he protested.

“Yeah, that's not really Kolivan's style,” Keith pinched the bridge of his nose. “He operates on need-to-know bases.”

“He thought his plan would work better if none of you knew what was really going on,” Sanrin explained. “Clearly, I was right when I told him it was a bad idea.”

For the second time that day, Lance had to agree with him. The whole mission had gone off the rails the exact moment it had begun; but at least some good had come out of it. And now that they knew for a fact that Kolivan liked using the Paladins as pawns, maybe Keith would realize he had one more reason to come home. The Mullet could bring Colrin along, if he wanted; there was plenty of room in the Castle.

“Guys, I actually need to go and get checked out now,” Hunk said, massaging his wrists. “I shot too much and now I'm hurting all over.”

Lance raised a questioning eyebrow at his best friend: Hunk’s overall level of panic didn’t seem to fit his ‘medical emergency’ standards. He didn’t even look the bad kind of jittery.

Pidge elbowed Hunk in the ribs. “What he means,” she teased, “is that he can't wait to check out one of those Telltales for himself.”

Hunk didn't deny it. “I can’t help it, they’re so fascinating!” He smiled one of his warmest Hunk smiles: “We'll see you guys and Matt at the Hospital!”

“Okay. We'll join you after—“ Lance got cut off by the screen going black.

Hunk and Pidge had signed off without much more of a goodbye, eager to take apart the first Telltale they could get their greedy, nerdy hands on.

“Rude,” Lance declared. There was no way he was saving them some of those spare Paladins plushies he won now!

His pout was still fresh on his lips when someone else entered the Control Room.

“Hello.”

Lance did a double take. There, wearing a uniform identical to Sanrin's, was the yellow alien lady that he and Keith had met at the Shooting Gallery. She was even rounder and smaller than Lance remembered, and she looked nothing but deadly in her new getup. She was armed to the teeth, and not with toy guns this time.

Lance waved her hello. Her lips formed an half smile before she turned to Sanrin: “Chief, we need your help in sector 13,” she informed him.

“Something wrong?”

“We’ve found the spy in our ranks—”

“I knew we had one!”

“—but some of our new, ah, _guests_ are objecting to the use of the Roller Coaster during interrogation. They're calling it torture.”

“Are they?” Sanrin gave her a wicked smile.

The Lady answered with a grin of her own: “They seem to think that the Laws of the Empire still apply here.”

“Well, they're in for a big surprise then.”

Did Lance ever mention he didn't like surprises? Well, that was exactly why.

A few minutes later, Sanrin said his farewells. He and Shooting Gallery Lady went off to give their prisoners a punishment that Allura probably would have disapproved of. Lance tried his best not to giggle.

“Hasta la later, quiznakers!”

That's what those backstabbing traitors got for playing Cupid in space! He didn't even care he was singing off-key. That was a moment to be celebrated!

He did a little victory dance, regretting it instantly when his body reminded him it was still on the mend. Shoulder burning, leg stinging, and chest heaving, Lance dusted off the nearest available chair and sat down.

That’s when he noticed that Keith was still acting weird. Well, _more_ weird. Weirder.

He was staring holes into the floor, glooming of course, and he was back at scratching his left arm. They should have it checked when they got to the hospital; at this point the rash had to look awful under the suit and—Lance suddenly felt faint. He brought his right hand to his neck, swallowing as a thought hit him.

Someone had hidden Keith’s hospital file. Someone involved with the Blades. And the Blades owned this place.

“...Do you think Colrin knew anything about this? Kolivan's plan, I mean.” That would make sense, in a weird way.

Keith looked lost. “I... don't know?”

“I would be pissed if he did.”

Even more confusion. “...Why?”

Quiznak, Keith _really_ was slow with that kind of stuff! “Well, because of the lies,” Lance spelled it out. “They're not nice, right? Especially if they come from someone you care about.”

For the umpteenth time that day, Keith frowned at Lance: “You care about him?”

“Well, of course!” Lance felt like he had to make that very clear.

And that's when things went downhill.

Keith didn't seem to like his answer; if anything, he looked saddened by it. “Oh,” he whispered, biting his lower lip. He looked away. “I... had a feeling you did.”

Cue more vigorous arm scratching.

And maybe it was that weird tick Keith had developed in the last day or so. Or maybe it was the way Keith said that sentence. But Lance suddenly came to a realization. “Oh, you think I have a _thing_ for Colrin!”

Keith's blush was all the confirmation he needed.

“No, no, man! You've got it totally wrong!” Lance denied with a bright laughter. “I mean, Colrin's cool and all, but I would never...” he trailed off. _‘Try to steal someone's boyfriend when they look so happy together’_ would have been a shitty thing to say out loud after the Sexy-Pollen thing, right? “Plus, I just figured it out, but I might kind of being in love with someone else, so...”

To be honest, he was a bit embarrassed too. After all, he was sort-of in love with a temperamental kitten. His mother would probably have a thing or two to say about that...

To his relief, however, Keith looked kinda happy with his answer.

“Oh.”

The blush kept spreading.

Lance got up and collected his gear: his bayard and a tablet that Sanrin had left them as a souvenir (no bloc notes involved this time!). Stored in there, where a map with access to all the Blades’ facilities in the park, plus some other handy stuff - like a free parking pass for their next visit to the Station. Lance was particularly grateful for that one.

He got out of the Control Room (by the front door this time) and started climbing the first flight of stairs. Keith trailed behind, weirdly determined not to make eye contact again.

“Do you think I could meet him?”

“Who?”

“Colrin.”

“Oh, sure,” Lance shrugged, not a care in the world. “He must be waiting for us upstairs; he should be done kicking Rebel ass by now.”

“He was there?” Keith asked.

Lance held onto the banister. He turned around with a frown. “You didn’t see him?” That arrow must have done more damage than Lance has originally thought, if Keith hadn't noticed Colrin - especially since he had saved them both. “He took that Galra out… the one with the two swords.”

Keith blinked. “Oh, right.” He tilted his head, recalling something. “I heard you shout his name. He’s one of Sanrin’s men, right? Which one?”

Lance held on tighter to the banister.

“You're kidding right?” he looked around, trying to make sure he wasn't trapped in another Mirror Dream.

That wasn't happening. That could _not_ be happening; not after everything he went through to figure out what Keith and Colrin meant to each other.

But no. _No_. That was the real Keith, in front of him. That was the real world, not an illusion. And Keith wasn’t lying to him.

Lance’s smile fell. “You know who Colrin is,” he insisted.

But when Keith looked at him, lost and a little hurt, Lance knew what he would say next.

“Lance, I don't know any Colrin.”

Lance's heart filled with petals.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance gets some answers. He doesn't like them.

Lance was unbelievably stupid. A dumb idiot. A brainless inkstain. A mindless twat. “A disgrace,” he mumbled to himself, dragging Keith along.

He should have figured it out _ages_ ago. Put two and two together as soon as Pidge told him that another Paladin had been affected by the stupid Juniberry Disease. But no: No: NO: Lance had to learn everything the hard way!

And, in the end, Keith still had to spell the truth out for him: _'I don't know any Colrin'_ , and all the pieces of the puzzle fell in their place.

It all made sense now. All the chopped conversations; all the unanswered questions; even the reaction that Keith had to that Sex Pollen stuff. There still were some blind spots here and there; but Lance would close those gaps as well - and then he would help Keith do the same, before it was too late.

“We need to hurry,” he panted.

With the petals sticking to the roof of his mouth, it was getting harder to breathe as they got closer to the hospital. Luckily, his anger fueled him, and they kept moving.

“What is going on?” Keith protested at every step, going from worry to confusion and back to annoyance and irritation in the space of a tick. “What's wrong?”

_Lots of things, Keith!_

Lots of things were wrong, and the pain in Lance's chest – the petals grazing his lungs and throat – wasn't even at the top of the list anymore.

The Blades owned the park: which meant that Kolivan had to know that Keith was sick. Oh yeah: Kolivan knew, but did the son of a bitch care? Of course not! He had sent Keith to the Station again, and now the side-effects of the Juniberry Disease had gotten worse.

Slowly but surely, Keith had forgotten everything about Colrin like he'd forgotten all about his unrequited love. The one that the doctors had weeded out and thrown away. The one that had been killing him.

Now it was up to Lance to restore his happiness, and he wouldn’t let himself fail.

“I figured it out!” The hospital doors opened with a soft swish.

“I figured it out!” Lance shouted to the astonished nurses.

And then again, slower, in the small room where his friends had assembled: “I figured it out.”

Everybody turned to look at him.

Hunk was sitting at a small table in front of the only bed in the room, tinkering with a Telltale. His wrists had been wrapped in tight bandages, but they were moving swiftly as his fingers took apart the device.

Pidge was watching him work from the other side of the table, eyes bored and sleepy behind her glasses.

And then there was Colrin, leaning against the wall with his eyes half closed. He was watching something out of the window when Lance burst into the room, a struggling Keith behind him.

“What did you figure out?” Pidge asked. Her voice lacked her usual lively streak.

Lance let go of Keith's wrist. “The Juniberry Curse,” he said.

By now, his breath came in heavy jolts, cheeks flushed and hair damp. He didn't know if it was his unkempt appearance or his answer that alarmed his friends.

Colrin was the first to react, but Lance only noticed because he was paying close attention to him. When the Blade’s eyes moved to Keith and then quickly back to Lance himself in quiet dismay, he didn't miss it.

_The son of a—_

“The Juniberries?” Hunk wondered. “I thought those flowers were extinct.”

“They are,” Pidge said. “That’s not important.”

She got up from her chair and moved closer to Lance. “You figured out who your love is?” All traces of sleep gone from her voice, and her words were soft, almost hopeful.

Lance took a step back. “No!” he denied. “That's not it at all!”

That hardly mattered right now. He didn't have the time to indulge Pidge and her taunting. Red could wait.

He reached out to Keith again. When his fingers found the now-familiar material of the Blade undersuit, he tugged his friend forward. “It’s him,” he said.

“Of course it’s—”

“I figured out what's wrong with him.”

Pidge halted; her lips formed a perfect 'O'. Before she could say anything, though, Keith freed himself from Lance's grip. “Nothing's wrong with me!” he objected.

Lance’s shoulders sagged. He looked at Pidge for help.

“What happened?” she asked. She was starting to see why Lance was upset now.

“He forgot,” Lance said.

He couldn't stop himself from glancing in the direction of the window when he answered. Colrin was still there, still assessing the situation from a distance, his eyes careful.

Lance's fingers had a spasm, and Colrin tilted his head, like he already knew how everything would end.

“Uhm, guys,” Hunk raised his hand, Telltale now forgotten on the table. “Sorry but I have to ask. What are you talking about? I think I missed something here. A lot of somethings maybe.”

“Keith's sick,” Lance took a burning breath, ignoring the taste of blood in his throat. “He came here months ago to be cured, but that didn't work out very well.”

“That's not true!” Keith protested again. He faced Lance with an angry frown: “I'm not sick!”

Pidge stepped between them. “I'm sorry, but Lance is right,” she raised her hands and tried to placate Keith.

“What?”

“We got your hospital records. There is no doubt that you've been here before.”

“Oh my God!” Hunk's chair fell to the floor. “Is it something bad? Should we put him in a healing pod?”

“I'm fine, Hunk,” Keith half-shouted. “And you're both wrong: I've never been here before yesterday.”

Lance felt a pang in his chest. _Shit._ That wasn’t gonna be easy.

“You were,” Lance insisted. He was doing his best to stay calm. “You can't remember because of what the doctors did to you. But you’ve been at this hospital before, Keith. With Kolivan,” he added, glancing down at Pidge.

“What?!” Keith looked more confused than ever now.

Pidge made a weird noise. “Kolivan must be the one who wiped half of his file...” she mumbled to herself. “That mother—“

“What do you think he wiped out?” Keith asked.

“Most of your clinical history here. Most of the useful data about your symptoms and what you suffer from...”

“And that would be…?” Keith still didn’t sound convinced.

Pidge didn’t care. “It’s something called the Juniberry Curse,” she explained.

“It makes flowers grow inside your lungs,” Lance added.

Hunk let out a soft whine.

“Why would flowers grow inside my lungs?” Keith asked. “That doesn't make any sense.”

“They're not normal flowers,” Pidge went on. “Their petals are made from a special kind of quintessence. One that resonates with your feelings.”

Keith's was hugging himself now. “Resonate how?”

“If the person you love doesn't love you back, you're gonna die,” Lance explained. “Puking flowers.” No reason to sugarcoat it.

Hunk paled. “Oh, that's heavy man.”

Keith snorted. He looked annoyed by the whole thing.

“You don't remember being sick because they took the flowers out,” Lance explained.

Before Keith could challenge them again, Pidge cut in: “There are two options to survive the Juniberry Curse,” she held up two fingers. “Either your feelings get reciprocated, or you get them removed by weeding the flowers out.”

Keith pulled a face. “With pesticide?”

“No, dumbass!” Lance exploded. “With surgery. Which you had about a year ago. To get over your burning love for... someone!”

“A year ago,” Keith repeated. And then he laughed. He honest to Alfor laughed!

It was a sight that Lance had only witnessed a handful of times before that. And it felt so wrong he kinda wanted to puke.

“Guys, you've got it all wrong.” Keith said. “That hospital file? If it's real, it's not mine.”

Lance was ready to strap him to the bed, but Pidge – whose honor as an hacker was at stake– decided to take a more pragmatic approach. Hands on her hips, she faced Keith high on her toes. “What makes you so sure of that?”

All mirth left Keith's face at once. He didn't answer at first, too busy to look first at the floor tiles and then at the posters on the walls. After what seemed like and endless internal debate, he walked to the other side of the room, hands closed in fists, still hugging himself.

He was staring right at Colrin when he whispered: “Because I've been in love with the same person for way longer than a year now.”

The Cupid's arrow hit Lance right in the chest. It was invisible and imaginary, of course; but it hurt more than a real one. He took two steps backwards, until his back met the closest wall.

Keith couldn't be right. How could he be in love with Colrin when he didn't remember him...? Unless... – Lance's eyes widened – unless, for some reason, the side-effects of the surgery were making Keith _think_ he was in love with someone other than Colrin now.

Lance brought his hands to his mouth and swallowed. That was too cruel. Lance's chest heaved. The petals were sticking to his tonsils now.

“But you don't remember him,” Lance whispered.

“Remember who?” Pidge asked, the same moment Keith turned to face them: “Don't I?”

Lance shook his head, scared. The taste of blood was hot in his mouth.

Colrin was staring at him with something like pity. But why wasn't he saying anything?! Did he know that his relationship with Keith would have ended like that? Did Kolivan warn him from the beginning...?

“He forgot him, Pidge,” Lance finally said.

Something shifted in Keith's eyes. “What are you talking about—“

“Hunk,” Lance called for help: “He doesn't remember who Colrin is!”

Keith didn’t remember, and yet he was in love with someone. Lance felt tears in his eyes. Because what if Keith was making someone up in his head? What if he was suffering because of something that didn't even exist...?

“Shit,” he wiped the flowers away with the back of his hand.

Hunk and Pidge looked at each other. She tilted her head, a bit nervous - a bit scared. “Lance... who is Colrin?”

Lance froze. He stared at her for a long time. “You're kidding right?” he was cold. “Please tell me you're joking. Hunk...?”

But Hunk only shook his head. “Lance I… I don't know who you're talking about,” he’d never seen him so worried before.

Lance took a step away from them all. He still couldn't understand.

“Is this thing contagious?” he feared. Was collective amnesia even possible…? “Is it spreading to everyone?! Colrin's right there!” he pointed  towards the window, where Colrin was. Still silent. Still unmoving. Still...

“Lance,” Keith came closer, hands raised in a calming gesture. “There's no-one there.”

Lance’s back hit the wall. He shook his head. “No, he's...”

Colrin was there.

...wasn't he?

Colrin gave Lance a patient smile. “Come on, it's time.”

No-one else heard him.

Lance slid to the floor, staring at Colrin. “He's...”

“He's the side-effects.”

Lance turned towards the new voice.

Matt and Layra were standing by the open door, matching worried looks on their faces. When nobody said anything, Matt took a deep breath. He gave Layra a nod and closed the door without making a sound.

“Yesterday morning, when Keith told Layra he didn't know what a Telltale was, I realized something was off. So I stayed here to do some more digging.” Matt looked at each of the Paladins in turn. “I tried to contact you but, you know...”

“The hostile Rebels' takeover?” Pidge suggested.

Matt nodded at his sister. “When communications got restored, I managed to contact the Castle, and the Princess helped us figure out what is really going on.”

The mention of Allura got Lance out of his stupor. “Wait... it's not just Kolivan? Allura is involved in this, too?”

Matt and Layra exchanged a look. The pretty doctor fluttered her wings, diverting all attention back on her. “Lance... what do you remember about the first time you got admitted here?”

“I was in the House of Mirrors. I got a concussion,” Lance answered, almost without meaning to. “Allura brought me here.”

Layra smiled: a forced smile. “And when was that?” she asked.

“About a year ago,” Lance answered.

“And what else happened around that time?”

“Keith was here—”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“—and he got sick.”

“No, Lance. A _Paladin_ got sick.”

Lance frowned. “But Keith _is_ a Paladin.”

Layra’s sad smile never faded. “So are you, Lance.”

No.

He shook his head.

No.

_Keith_ was the one who was sick. And now everyone else was. It had to be that way.

“You almost died a year ago, Lance,” Layra told him. “They had to take the flowers out of you.”

No.

“You forgot all about your love. But you didn't want to remember ever being sick either.”

That was not it.

“You made things up, Lance. You still are.”

Layra took his hand.

Lance recoiled. He hit his head against the wall, and kept kicking the air until he found himself curled up in the corner at the other end of the room, where Colrin was.

“No,” he said, over and over, hands covering his ears. “That's not it.”

They were wrong. All of them. Lance didn’t have enough imagination to come up with something - _someone_ \- like that.

Everything was fine with him. So Hunk and Pidge could stop crying right now. And Keith could stop looking like someone had just gutted him with a rusty knife. Because Lance was fine. Lance was well, Lance was...

“Breathe,” Colrin said, stroking his back. “Breathe.”

Lance couldn't. Not very well. Not with the flowers coming up throat, bleeding and blooming and blossoming.

“Keith never had the Juniberry Curse,” Layra said.

Lance didn’t want to hear her now. His body was burning. And Layra was close - too close - with her pretty voice and wrong, wrong words.

Colrin whispered in his ear.

_“It was you all along.”_

 

\---

 

When the illusion shattered, Lance saw the cracks in his own reality.

He screamed, or so he thought, and for a moment he existed only in the form of searing white pain. No thoughts, no regrets, no guilt: there was only an empty void. Lance filled it with his own self: memory after memory, he became aware of all the lies he’d been telling himself.

Colrin was a delusion: something (no... he'd still rather call him a _someone_ ) born out of Lance’s own stubbornness and pain. Lance had never wanted to forget his love; so, when they had taken the flowers from him, he made up something to hold on to it.

Lance’s memories had gone; but his feelings had endured, hidden from sight and thought, waiting to be awakened from their slumber.

Lance couldn't really blame the doctors. They had to act fast, when Allura had brought him to the hospital, almost dead from his love.

He remembered everything in every little detail now: Allura's panicked eyes, as she found him passed out in his room, flowers coming out of his mouth. His own horror, when she had told him what would come next.

“Please don't do it.”

Lance had begged.

“Please, 'lura.”

“I don’t want to forget.”

But his Princess was made of steel. “I'm not letting you die,” she had said.

There still were tears in her eyes.

Lance wondered how hard it must have been, keeping his secret from everyone but the mice - and Kolivan.

The leader of the Blades had been there too. Meeting _him_ had been their mission: he had wanted to talk about the Station, its hidden potential, and how it could help the Coalition. Lance recalled their conversations in the House of Mirrors, and along the busy streets were the food parlors were.

He also remembered Kolivan brushing his hair away from his forehead as another flower stole his breath. He thought about the apology he had never expected in the first place, and scoffed at the irony of it: all those tears, guilt and regret. All for nothing.

The Juniberry Curse was a rare sickness, and the quintessence Lance had been exposed to was a strange, unpredictable thing. It shifted, twisted, and fought back with all its might. It had left something in Lance, that first time.

Taking out the petals didn't work. The seeds of his unrequited love were still there: something that could still take root in his lungs and bloom within his heart. How, and when, Allura and Kolivan might not have known: but they must have suspected. 'Cause Lance, fool that he was, had kept watering those stupid seeds until they started sprouting again.

Because his love was never gone, wasn't it? It had always been there. Just hidden in plain sight. And when it grew, it consumed Lance to the point of insanity.

…Well, _almost_.

 

\---

 

“You know what I don't get?” Lance asked the ceiling above his hospital bed. “What you are supposed to be. A rival? A friend? Something in between?”

“I'm not supposed to be anything.”

Colrin's voice was as bright and happy as Lance remembered. Maybe even more so, now that the Blade was free from his own burden: pretending to be real.

“I'm just here to make you notice things.”

Lance couldn't help it: he laughed. His chest swelled with pain. “Well, you're not doing a very good job, man.”

“I know,” Colrin teased. “You're not supposed to like me at all.”

“Yeah, well... I might like you a little less now that I know you've been killing me.”

That smug smile was back. “Hardly my fault.”

Yeah. That was all on Lance and his bad luck. He had been so blind to the truth that he even convinced himself he was in love with a mechanical cat, for quiznak's sake!

“You could still have given me better hints,” he chided.

“I'm not the focus of this story, Lance,” Colrin explained. “I only appeared when I needed to.”

He threw his chakrams in the air.

Lance followed their path as they spun and twirled around like they were made out of nothing. Which, he supposed, was the truth. Yet, Colrin still surprised him with a new parlor trick.

In the empty space inside the metallic circles, Lance could see scenes from his past: the moment he woke up with Allura by his side and she told him he had fainted in the House of Mirrors; his first encounter with Colrin; their flight to the Station; all The Awkward (™) stuff with Keith. Lance remembered two versions of all those events and more now. First, there was the lie, where Colrin talked, touched and interacted with his friends; and then there was the reality, where Lance was talking to himself and moving stuff around just to keep up with his own delusion.

Lance was impressed at how far the Juniberry Curse went to reshape his reality. Up until the very last moment, he never addressed Colrin directly, nor did he mention his name out loud unless they weren’t alone. And, in return, Colrin never spoke directly to anyone but Lance: he _talked to them_ , but _they_ had never talked to him.

What a fool Lance had been.

“A fool in love,” Colrin grinned.

He caught his chakrams one last time and they both turned into silvery dust, disappearing like petals blown away by the wind.

“I really am. In love,” Lance finally admitted. He felt tired; more tired than he'd ever been. He tilted his head back against his pillow, the pain in his chest now more intense.

The flowers were spreading faster. He could feel them in his lungs and in his throat, taking all that was left of him. His heart would be pierced by their stems any second now.

A soft humming sound made Lance open his eyes.

Colrin was staring at him with a fond smile. The S.O.B. could really be charming when he wanted, you know? He _was_ good at his job after all.

Lance didn't lie when he said he liked the guy. 

“You know what, Colrin? I'm glad I won't have the time to miss you.” He forced himself to sit up on the bed.

“Oh, don't be so sure of that,” that smug smile again. “You're not dying, Lance. At least not yet.”

“Uh?”

Lance blinked. That was certainly good news, but… it was also not possible. Not with all those petals in his lungs and—

Suddenly, Colrin’s hands were on his chest. 

“Happy ending, Bee Queen.”

A push.

Lance jolted awake.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance is not THAT dense.

“I heard you made up a boyfriend for me.”

Those were strange first words to hear, considering he was waking up in an hospital bed with the deep belief that he was about to die. But, of course, they were exactly what Lance got — those and a patented scowl.

“In my defense, I wasn't aware I was making anything or _anyone_ up.” His voice came out rough and strained.

Lance sat up and fell back against his pillow. Every movement hurt, but he still had to suppress a fit of giggles when he noticed that Keith was leaning against the wall in a very Colrin-like pose.

But, unlike Colrin, Keith was real; and instead of giving answers, he had a lot of questions. “Was he nice, at least?”

“He was.”

“Smart?”

“Yeah.”

“A good fighter?”

“Yup.”

“Handsome too?”

“Of course he—” Lance stilled.

He realized that he had no idea how Colrin looked. There were the sleek movements; the smug smiles; the clingy Blade Suit. But Lance couldn't recall the color of his skin, nor the shape of his eyes. Did he even had eyes? How many…? He had no idea. Quiznak: if Keith asked him if Colrin had a tail, Lance would be left only with a weak: ‘I don't know’. That’s exactly what he told him.

“I think Colrin was more of an idea than an actual person,” Lance explained. “Someone I thought could be good for you.”

“Oh.”

“He was really great, you know? He—you would have liked him.”

“I’m sure of that.”

Keith’s bitter tone took Lance by surprise. He recoiled against the pillows and felt a pang in his right shoulder, suddenly reminded of the wound there. He forced himself to look around the room.

His friends hadn’t moved him very far. The forgotten remains of the Telltale that Hunk had been taking apart were still resting on the table. Near it was a tablet open on a file that Lance recognized at a glance: Keith’s hospital records. His real ones.

Lance guessed it was a good moment as any to get everything off his chest, before the flowers finished their job.

“I'm glad you're not sick,” he told Keith. “And I'm sorry I tried to convince you otherwise. I guess I was protecting myself? I dunno… it still was a shitty thing to do.”

Keith looked at him funny. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again before any sound could come out. Maybe he was trying not to argue with someone on his deathbed.

Whatever the reason, in the end Keith shook his head and got back to scratching his left arm.

Lance was getting worried about that now. “Are you getting that checked out?”

“What?”

“Your rash.”

“Oh.”

A doubt. “It really is a rash, right?”

“...Not really,” Keith said.

“WHAT?!”

Against his better judgement, Lance sprang forward - and immediately had to lean back again, as his chest burst into metaphorical flames.

“Calm down!” Keith groaned. “It’s nothing _lethal_.”

And was Lance imagining it, or was Keith blushing a little?

“Wait, let me show you.” Keith took one of the spare chairs from the table and moved it next to the bed. He sat down, took off his glove and rolled up the sleeve of his bodysuit until his whole upper arm was free.

Lance blinked a million times, just to make sure he wasn't imagining things. Again. “You're still purple,” he stated the obvious. A tick later, Keith’s skin reverted back to its original color. “What the heck?!”

Keith's blush was also very real at this point. “Yeah, Layra told me it's an emotional thing.”

“An _emotional_ thing?” Lance parroted.

“When I'm... not in control of my emotions, I kind of Galra-out.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s… cool.”

Keith hid his not-rash again.

Lance had to know: “Did Layra actually called it—” _Galra-ing out_.

“Hunk called it like that, remember?” Keith said, not missing his chance to take their conversation elsewhere. “And he's very pissed at you, by the way,” he added.

Lance flinched. “Yeah, I figured.” Lying got you on Hunk’s shit list pretty fast. Lance was probably on top of it now. He scratched his cheek. “I guess I'll have to apologize to him later, too.”

“That’d be a good idea,” Keith was quick to agree.

“And your chest?” Lance inquired. “Is it fine now?”

“Yeah, Layra took a scan. It’s already healed.”

“Oh, good.”

Silence fell again between them. Before it could get uncomfortable, Lance had a thought: “About this Galra-ing out thing...” he wondered, “do you also get all the—“

Keith growled. Honest to God _growled_. “If you ask me anything fur-related I swear I'm gonna cut off your head!”

Lance gaped at him. That wasn’t what he had wanted to ask at all! He was more interested in pointy teeth and sharp claws - and maybe that infamous tail - rather than in fur. But since Keith opened that door…

“It’s scientific curiosity!” Lance got defensive. “Plus, it's a very relevant topic, since you getting all that hair would make you no less attractive and-” he stopped talking, aware of what he’d just said.

When he looked up, Keith had grown very, very still in his chair. That flush now spreading to his ears and neck, and hands were resting just above his knees, closed into tight fists. When their eyes met, Keith was quick to look away.

Lance coughed.

Another petal forced its way past his lips and fell on the blanket. Keith slowly took it between his fingers - a small, shapeless fragment of glass, somehow free from Lance's blood - and stared at it like it was most fascinating thing in the universe.

“You must know by now, right?” Lance asked Keith. “Why I'm... That I'm in... _you know_... with you.”

It was the second time that the Juniberry Curse spread through him; and yet, Lance still couldn’t find the right words to say it. He was still afraid of how much Keith’s answer would hurt.

Keith crushed the petal between his thumb and index finger. “Yeah.” Lance’s corrupted quintessence glowed before disappearing like sand, shining a pale blue light against his skin. “I know,” he said, still enthralled by the cosmic dust.

Lance swallowed the taste of copper and tears. “Good,” he told himself.

_Great. That was just... great. And not awkward at all._

“So... do you know when I'm going in?”

Keith snapped back to reality. He took his eyes off his fingers and choked out a strangled: “What?”

“Surgery,” Lance said. And looked away. He really didn't want to go through with it, certainly not for a second time, and certainly not when he knew how losing Keith felt like.

But Pidge and Matt had been right all along: he needed to survive. He still had a role to play in all of this - he owned it to his duty as a Paladin, and maybe even to himself. He had already faced his greatest fear; and he knew, now, that the roots of his love for Keith had grown too deep. Nothing could ever unearth them, if not his own heart.

At least, now that everyone knew what was going on, maybe they'd find a way to slow the disease before the flowers had to be weeded out again.

Lance braced himself. “They're putting me under today or are they waiting a little longer...?”

“No,” Keith said. “You're not getting surgery.”

Lance startled. “What?!”

That didn't make any sense. It was not like they'd all let him die. Unless... _quiznak_ : “This thing changed again, didn't it? Is it some new side-effect? They can't take the flowers out anymore and-”

“Calm down,” Keith told him again. “It's not anything like that,” he pinched the bridge of his nose.

Lance tried to contain his panic. “So... they found a different cure?,” he calmed down _a little_ , but he could see that something wasn’t right.

Keith was hiding behind his own hand now. And he was… smiling? Yeah, that was definitely a smile!

“Keith...?”

Keith made a ‘ _I give up!_ ’ gesture and stared at Lance with something akin to disbelief. Or maybe it was amusement? Frustration…? It was kinda difficult to tell: Lance’s brain had turned into mush by now.

“You know, I was about to let it slide,” Keith said. “I thought it was the Juniberry Disease messing with your brain, _again_.”

“I'm still sick,” Lance felt compelled to say.

“Yeah, not the point.”

“That’s the only point!”

Keith rolled his eyes. “No, it isn’t! The point is that you are so dense you’re not getting it even now!”

Lance felt an itty bitty stupid at that: “Getting what?” he screeched.

Keith’s arms fell to his sides, motionless. It was like he was having the internal debate of his life. And then someone won the argument: “You are ridiculous,” Keith said.

Lance puffed his cheeks, offended. He was ready to give Keith a piece of his mind, when it happened.

The Kiss (™).

The Kissing (™).

As in: Keith was _kissing him_.

Lance was perfectly aware of how not awkward that was. At least he was until he felt Keith's tongue brush his lips and he kind of... SHOVED KEITH AWAY.

Needless to say, Keith wasn't too happy when he fell from the chair and then on the floor. He even bounced a little.

“What the quiznak, Lance?”

“Are you another Mirror Dream?!” Lance shouted. “An hallucination? Maybe an illusion…”

Keith growled again. This time, Lance saw more than his arm turn Galra. There was a purple streak running from his right cheek to his neck, and his teeth looked way more pointy that a few seconds before. No claws, but that didn’t stop Lance from staring.

When he noticed what was happening, Keith huddled up on the floor and tried to get back in control of his body. “ _Focus”_ , he muttered under his breath. “ _Calm down”_. After a while, Lance saw the mark fading from his skin.

Lance blinked: “You're real.”

Another epic eye roll. “Yes. I'm real, you idiot!”

“Oh. So you're...” Lance moved his hands in the air, never settling for a clear sign. “...with me? And it’s not the Sexy Pollen speaking?”

Keith got up from the floor and sat back on his chair. The look he gave Lance was the one of a teacher trying to explain something to a very dumb student.

“Lance, I lost count of how many dates I went with you. I endured at least three different autograph sessions with your fans. I pretended to be a worse shot than I am... I even gave you my dragon heart.” Keith looked at him with the fond look he usually reserved for Colrin. Except he never looked at Colrin because Colrin was real and those looks were actually meant for…   _Oh... oh!_ Lance got it now. Keith said it anyway, fingers brushing against Lance’s: “What more should I do to make you understand that I'm in love with you?”

Something gave in inside of Lance. He felt the petals twirl in his chest, but they didn’t hurt anymore.

“I had a plan,” he told Keith, “to give you a dragon heart myself.”

“Yeah?” Keith smiled.

“I got a bit sidetracked.”

“I guess you did.”

“I’m sorry,” Lance squeezed Keith’s fingers.

“It’s fine. You can always get me one the next time we go to the Haunted House.”

“That’s not it. I want to get you that heart, but that’s not what I’m apologizing for.”

Keith tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

“All those dates we went to, I didn't realize what I was doing,” Lance confessed. “I sent you a lot of… mixed signals, I guess.” He definitely did that: he led Keith on. The shittiest thing he could have ever done.

“Oh. Yeah,” Keith bit his lower lip. “I thought that was me... reading you wrong.” His voice was weak, a bit unsure. Lanced hated being the cause of that.

“I'm sorry,” he said again. “About how I made you feel.”

Keith said nothing for a bit. Then, all of a sudden, he took his hand back, leaving Lance’s fingers grasping at empty air. “Yeah, that was really shitty of you.”

His words were cruel; but his voice wasn’t.

Lance nodded. “I’m sorr—”

Keith took his face between his hands, making Lance look at him. “You’ve been a real monster to me,” he said. He was smiling.

“I… have?”

“Yes. So, how are you going to make it up to me?”

His nose was brushing against Lance’s, and his lips were caressing Lance’s cheeks at every breath. When their foreheads touched, Lance raised his hands and held Keith’s palms there, locking this moment inside of him forever.

“I was thinking... a date?”

“That’s a good start.”

“You will love it.”

“As long as you don't bring me any flowers...”

Lance laughed. This time, when Keith kissed him, Lance kissed him back.

Within that happiness, the last of the petals withered away.

 

\---

 

“Patients and visitors shouldn't share the same bed, you know?”

“I don't count as a patient.”

“You do, Lance. You have this nice room all to yourself.”

“But I'm not sick anymore!”

“Oh, I think you're still very lovesick,” Layra teased him. “Now, could your boyfriend please get off the bed and leave the snuggling for later?”

Keith's head didn't move from where it was resting on Lance's chest. “Can't,” still half asleep, he wrapped himself tighter around Lance's body, above the covers. “I'm helping him with his love sickness.”

“He's been very helpful,” Lance informed Layra. “I feel a lot better now.”

That was true: an hour of sleep beside Keith, and he felt like a new man. The tang of blood had left his mouth; his limbs didn't ache anymore; and even the petals had stopped scratching his lungs. Now, when Lance concentrated on his chest, he couldn't feel them anymore; the was only a steady warmth: a sense of belonging that hadn't been there before.

Layra made an approving sound, and her wings gave an happy flutter. “That I can believe,” she said. “But I still have to check your calf and shoulder.” She made a motion for Keith to move away.

Lance let out a theatrical sigh. “You're hearing this, Keith? Everyone wants to check me out! I'm such a catch!”

Keith hid a yawn behind his hand and slid into the chair next to the bed. “That's great,” he said.

“Rude!” Lance protested. And when Layra threw back the covers, to look at his left leg: “So rude!”

Layra laughed. The Telltale beeped. “Seems like you're healed,” she stared at the screen. “Avoid straining activities for a couple of days and you'll be fine.”

Lance scrunched his nose: “What kind of straining— _ouch!_ Keith! That hurt!”

Keith hit him in the belly with his open palm again. “Shut up,” he mumbled.

“But Keith!” Lance complained again. “I want to visit the park with you. I need to know where I can bring you on dates!”

Keith flushed. “Oh.”

“...What did you think I was talking about?” Lance squinted.

Keith avoided his gaze. “Nothing.”

Layra laughed again. “I'm sure you'll find somewhere nice for your date,” she said. “Which reminds me... Someone left something for you two.”

“What is it?” Lance bounced on the mattress. “A get-well-soon present?”

“Something like that.”

Layra walked in the corridor outside the room and retrieved something from a medical trolley. When she came back, she had two transparent bags with her. In one where Keith’s jacket and jeans; in the other, something was moving around its many tentacles.

“Tiny!” Lance half-shouted. “You're okay!”

Tiny spat a jet of rainbow ink.

“Aw!” Lance cooed. “Did you see that? He understands me!”

Layra put Tiny down on the bedside table, where he kept swimming happily. “It wouldn't surprise me,” she said. “They're very intelligent creatures. That’s why we use them to help us with the patients when they’re still little.”

Keith tapped Tiny's bag with his index finger. One tentacle raised to greet him.

“Who brought him here?” Keith asked.

“Sanrin, I believe. There's also a note from his son,” Layra said, handing Lance a small piece of paper. “I think you two made quite an impression on him.”

Lance was about to ask her what she was talking about, when he noticed the name on the note. “Klitty?!” he read. He probably should have made the connection before, when Klitty’s mother had the hotel security turn a blind eye at their sparring session in the dining hall. In his defense, Lance had had a lot on his plate at the time.

Keith groaned again.

Layra was still laughing at them when she left a few minutes later, taking both the Telltale and Keith’s file back with her.

Lance pouted. He was getting cold. He turned to tell Keith to get back into bed - to snuggle - but Keith seemed taken with something else. He was kneeling in front of the bedside table, elbows on the top shelf, staring at Tiny with a focused look.

Lance pulled at the sheets. “You okay?”

Keith hum’ed. “Yeah. I was thinking about this little guy. He made me realize a lot of stuff before.”

_Well, that was a vague answer_. “What do you mean?”

“The guy at the beach told me that this species can figure out if someone's sick,” Keith shared. “They kind of... reach out with their tentacles and do that rainbow thing Tiny did back when we were underwater with him.”

Lance blinked. “That's why you asked me if I was sick back then,” he realized.

“Yeah, but that's not all. I was worried about you. And then we got to the House of Mirrors and I got trapped in a Dream and—”

“What did you see?” Lance asked. When Keith didn’t answer right away, he leaned forward and took Keith’s hand.

Keith entwined their fingers together. “I saw you,” he said. “You were sick. Maybe dying...”

_Shit_. That was a little too close to the truth, for Lance’s tastes. “I'm sorry. I've been such a dick, lying to you—“

Keith ignored him. He was still lost in his memories. “You weren't alone. There was someone else with you...”

“Was it you?”

“No. It was... well, in a way I think it was Colrin?”

Lance blinked. “Okay, you've lost me now.”

That wasn’t how the Juniberry Curse worked, as far as Lance knew.

Keith took a deep breath. “When Kolivan sent me back to the Castle for this mission, Hunk and Pidge told me that something was off with you.”

Lance jolted up. “What?!” _What were those two trolls thinking???_

“They said they noticed that you had this habit of... talking to yourself? Or maybe with someone else. They were kind of worried.”

“Oh.”

Yep. Lance was definitely a scumbag. No doubt about it now. His apology basket for Hunk would come with a Pidge apology basket too. He might throw in a little something for everyone, just to be sure The Apologizing (™) went well.

“Anyway,” Keith reclaimed his attention. “Since you told me you kind of were in love with someone, back when we were with BeeBee, I figured that the person in the Mirror Dream was the one you were talking about.”

Lance thought it over: “To recap: you saw me sick, maybe dying, and my maybe-boyfriend was taking care of me?”

“Uhm… yeah,” Keith got all shifty again.

“Why is it that when you actually stop and think about something, you overthink it so badly?”

“Look who's talking!” Keith quipped back.

Lance snorted. “Well, anyway, I’m glad Sanrin was there to help you.”

“And I'm glad this guy was there too,” Keith said, looking at Tiny. “I had already figured out I liked you,” his eyes moved to Lance. “But when he touched you and I thought about losing you...  that's when I knew I was in love with you.”

Lance would not cry. He was determined not to cry. His eyes still got all wet. He quickly wiped it with the back of his palm. “You know what? He’s like a metaphor for our relationship: small, complicated and all rainbow-y”.

Keith laughed and climbed back into bed. His head was resting on Lance’s chest, and Lance liked to think he was listening to him breathe.

“You think Allura will let us keep Tiny in the Castle?” Keith asked.

“Of course, why wouldn't she let—” Lance paused. “Wait.” He moved around so he could look at Keith in the face. “Does that mean you're coming back?”

“I should keep an eye on you, don't you think?” Keith said. “Just to make sure those flowers never grow back.”

“That's a great plan, Mullet,” Lance said. “The best one ever.”

And it really was.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five things.

At the end of this story, there are several things that should be noted.

_First thing first:_ Lance did send an apology basket to everyone involved in the whole Juniberry Curse thing: Pidge, Matt, Allura, Coran (just to be sure)... even Lotor, who got a crate filled with anti-grease shampoo (though that was Lance trying to send him a nasty message). For  Krolia, Lance hunted down 145 different flavors of space ice-cream; none of them were black cherry, but it was a start. Hunk also got the longest hug ever, because he was the best friend in the whole universe and Lance didn't deserve him. There might have been a lot of crying and a lot of celebratory food involved. Lance might have gotten sick again because he ate too much crème goolè. But in the end everything was fine, even his stomach.

_Second thing second:_ Lance and Keith did enjoy the rest of their time at the amusement park of Galaxy Station 87. They went to the Flying Shark Show (using the _two_ tickets the Yellow Lady had given Lance), then back to the Haunted House. Lance kept his promise and gave a dragon heart of his own to Keith: a small, red rock that now rested on a frame beside Lance's own, at the feet of their bed, near a giant stuffed hippo. Before leaving, they also said goodbye to BeeBee in the Tunnel of Love (that’s where Lance took his chance to teach Keith the difference between bites and hickeys, by the way. He came out of the experience a little mauled, but that was totally worth it.)

_Third thing:_ the Red Lion laughed at Lance for about 6 hours straight when he told him about how he and Keith got together. He laughed for 19 more when Lance confessed he thought he'd been in love with him. _Then_ Lance retaliated by telling everyone how Blue was the kindest, most polite Lion ever. Red forgot how brakes worked for a week after that.

_Fourth thing:_ Keith loved being the big spoon. He was also hot in more ways than one, and Lance hid his feet between his calves whenever he got cold.

_Fifth and final thing:_ Allura did allow Lance and Keith to keep little Tiny. His tank was near Kaltenecker's quarters, and sometimes Coran asked his help in the infirmary. As it turned out, Tiny spoke this ancient squid language that the Altean was fluent in. That's how they figured out exactly what species Tiny was and… uh... _well_...

“I can't believe you have a Kraken for a pet,” Hunk said, sampling appetizers at the edge of the Altean pool.

“I can't believe the metaphor of your relationship with Keith is trying to get into Shiro's pants,” Pidge added.

Lance pff'ed. “That's not his pants. That's his swimming trunks!”

“He's just playing!” Keith shouted, all red in the face. “Aren't you just playing Tiny?!”

“I think he's trying to kiss him,” Matt suggested, sipping his cocktail. “Look at how those tentacles move.”

“No. No, no, no. Guys.” Hunk stopped chewing. Gulped. “That's the thing he does before he goes in for the kill.”

Allura's hands went to her mouth. “You think Tiny wants to _eat_ Shiro?”

“How delicious,” Lotor deadpanned.

“Tiny!” Keith disentangled himself from Lance and got up from his chair. “Stop squeezing Shiro so hard!”

“It's fine!” Shiro called back. “I think he's just trying to—“

“Oh no,” Lance watched in moderate horror as one of Tiny's tentacles wrapped around Shiro’s waist. He reached blindly to cover Pidge's eyes with his hands.

Matt swatted his fingers away. “No need,” he said.

Lance looked again. Tiny was holding Shiro upside down, but his tentacles had stopped moving: they had already marked what they wanted.

“What the quiznak,” Keith said, looking up.

Shiro's body was all rainbow-y. Purple, red, blue, yellow, green: Tiny had left every shade on his skin. And now the Kraken was looking at them with his huge eyes, making those low-pitched sounds he made when he wanted to tell them something.

“Coran...” Allura tried, “is Shiro sick?”

Coran took a while to answer. He pulled at his mustache. “He’s not sick, Princess. But apparently he's not our Shiro either.”

“WHAT?”

...

Okay, fine: _Sixth and final thing._

“I can't believe the metaphor of your relationship with Keith lead us to unveil a clone conspiracy,” Pidge said.

“The metaphor of _what_?” The real Shiro stumbled out of his cocoon.

Keith enveloped him in a tight hug. “It’s a little Kraken thing.”

“Sounds great.”

Lance smiled: “You have a lot of catching up to do, sir.”

“A lot of good things,” Keith said. He let Shiro go and stepped back beside Lance. He took his hand on his own.

They both looked at Shiro, waiting for… something. Lance didn’t know what, but he felt like it was important. Keith held his breath.

And Shiro – battered, bruised and tired Shiro – gave them the proudest of smiles. “I can't wait to hear the whole story.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand it's done! I had a blast writing from Lance's POV, even if it was a big challenge.
> 
> Thank you to everyone for reading, liking/bookmarking/subscribing and/or leaving feedback: it really means a lot to me :3
> 
> Galaxy Station 87 made me break my previous record for "Longest Fic I've Ever Written" ([Muddy Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13221129) was dethroned!), so I'd also thank the two oblivious idiots who inspired it.


End file.
